refore for admission, in a gentlemanly
capacity, at the doors.

The next thing was to choose a profession.

Here the Doctor was liberality itself, in leaving me to my own devices.
I was of a roving adventurous temperament, and I should have liked to
go into the army. But where was the money to come from, to pay for my
commission? As to enlisting in the ranks, and working my way up,
the social institutions of my country obliged the grandson of Lady
Malkinshaw to begin military life as an officer and gentleman, or not
to begin it at all. The army, therefore, was out of the question. The
Church? Equally out of the question: since I could not pay for admission
to the prepared place of accommodation for distinguished people, and
could not accept a charitable free pass, in consequence of my high
connections. The Bar? I should be five years getting to it, and should
have to spend two hundred a year in going circuit before I had earned a
farthing. Physic? This really seemed the only gentlemanly refuge left;
and yet, with the knowledge of my father's experience before me, I was
ungrateful enough to feel a secret dislike for it. It is a degrading
confession to make; but I remember wishing I was not so highly
connected, and absolutely thinking that the life of a commercial
traveler would have suited me exactly, if I had not been a poor
gentleman. Driving about from place to place, living jovially at inns,
seeing fresh faces constantly, and getting money by all this enjoyment,
instead of spending it--what a life for me, if I had been the son of a
haberdasher and the grandson of a groom's widow!

While my father was uncertain what to do with me, a new profession was
suggested by a friend, which I shall repent not having been allowed
to adopt, to the last day of my life. This friend was an eccentric old
gentleman of large property, much respected in our family. One day,
my father, in my presence, asked his advice about the best manner of
starting me in life, with due credit to my connections and sufficient
advantage to myself.

"Listen to my experience," said our eccentric friend, "and, if you are
a wise man, you will make up your mind as soon as you have heard me. I
have three sons. I brought my eldest son up to the Church; he is said to
be getting on admirably, and he costs me three hundred a year. I brought
my second son up to the Bar; he is said to be getting on admirably,
and he costs me four hundred a year. I brought my thi