2o8 OCCASIONAL HAPPY THOUGHTS. 



" Now," said my uncle, who was vety angry at the partner- 

 ship prospect being obhterated : " You 77iust do something." 



We were at dessert at the time, and being thus addressed, 

 I began peehng an apple : not because I wanted it, but to 

 convey an idea that I had no wish to be idle. 



" The Army 1 " said I, inquiringly. 



" You're too old," was my uncle's reply ; surlily. 



I murmured vaguely, " the Mounted Rifles," having some 

 indistinct notion that you could enter this corps (if such an 

 one existed, of which I had my secret doubts) up to any age : 

 perhaps be a raw recruit at seventy. 



" Mounted Fiddlesticks ! " said my uncle, who thought T 

 was treating the subject with levity, and did not want me to 

 be, as he expressed it, " kicking my heels about at home." 



I couldn't help laughing at his saying " Mounted Fiddle- 

 sticks," whereupon he begged me not to play the fool at his 

 table, whatever I might do at Fobbes and Grumbury's. From 

 which you may gather that my uncle did not possess the best 

 of tempers : he was also, as you may have seen from his view 

 of the future partnership at Fobbes's, a very sanguine man. 



" The Law ? " I suggested experimentally. 



" Yes," said he superciliously, " that's all very well : but 

 what do you mean by the Law ? " 



I did not know what I meant, having indeed spoken at hap- 

 hazard: but I had a general idea of a long wig, bands, a 

 gown, and being a judge, somehow. I was silent. 



" The Bar," asked my uncle, " or a solicitor ? " 



Never having considered this before, I thought the dutiful 

 course would be to refer it to him. He chose the Bar. The 



