own
sake. He hoped to teach me to set a proper value on my inheritance,
by letting me learn, in this way, all that it costs to make a fortune;
wherefore, as soon as I was old enough to understand his advice, he
urged me to choose a profession and to work steadily at it. My tastes
inclined me to the study of medicine.

"So I left Sorreze, after ten years of almost monastic discipline of
the Oratorians; and, fresh from the quiet life of a remote provincial
school, I was taken straight to the capital. My father went with me in
order to introduce me to the notice of a friend of his; and (all unknown
to me) my two elders took the most elaborate precautions against any
ebullitions of youth on my part, innocent lad though I was. My allowance
was rigidly computed on a scale based upon the absolute necessaries of
life, and I was obliged to produce my certificate of attendance at the
Ecole de Medecine before I was allowed to draw my quarter's income. The
excuse for this sufficiently humiliating distrust was the necessity of
my acquiring methodical and business-like habits. My father, however,
was not sparing of money for all the necessary expenses of my education
and for the amusements of Parisian life.

"His old friend was delighted to have a young man to guide through
the labyrinth into which I had entered. He was one of those men whose
natures lead them to docket their thoughts, feelings, and opinions
every whit as carefully as their papers. He would turn up last year's
memorandum book, and could tell in a moment what he had been doing a
twelvemonth since in this very month, day, and hour of the present year.
Life, for him, was a business enterprise, and he kept the books after
the most approved business methods. There was real worth in him though
he might be punctilious, shrewd, and suspicious, and though he never
lacked specious excuses for the precautionary measures that he took with
regard to me. He used to buy all my books; he paid for my lessons; and
once, when the fancy took me to learn to ride, the good soul himself
found me out a riding-school, went thither with me, and anticipated my
wishes by putting a horse at my disposal whenever I had a holiday. In
spite of all this cautious strategy, which I managed to defeat as soon
as I had any temptation to do so, the kind old man was a second father
to me.

"'My friend,' he said, as soon as he surmised that I should break away
altogether from my leading strings, unless he