Hitherto George had always passed some part of his vacations at Hadley. The amusements there were not of a very exciting nature; but London was close, and even at Hadley there were pretty girls with whom he could walk and flirt, and the means of keeping a horse and a couple of pointers, even if the hunting and shooting were not conveniently to be had.
A few days after the glories of his degree, when his name was still great on the High Street of Oxford, and had even been touched by true fame in a very flattering manner in the columns of the "Daily Jupiter," he came home to Hadley. His uncle never encouraged visits from him in the city, and they met, therefore, for the first time in the old man's drawing-room just before dinner.
"How are you, George?" said the uncle, putting out his hand to his nephew, and then instantly turning round and poking the fire. "What sort of a journey have you had from Oxford? Yes, these railways make it all easy. Which line do you use? Didcot, eh? That's wrong. You'll have a smash some of these days with one of those Great Western express trains" – Mr. Bertram held shares in the opposition line by which Oxford may be reached, and never omitted an opportunity of doing a little business. "I'm ready for dinner; I don't know whether you are. You eat lunch, I suppose. John, it's two minutes past the half-hour. Why don't we have dinner?"
Not a word was said about the degree – at least, not then. Indeed Mr. Bertram did not think very much about degrees. He had taken no degree himself, except a high degree in wealth, and could not understand that he ought to congratulate a young man of twenty-two as to a successful termination of his school-lessons. He himself at that age had been, if not on 'Change, at any rate seated on the steps of 'Change. He had been then doing a man's work; beginning to harden together the nucleus of that snowball of money which he had since rolled onwards till it had become so huge a lump – destined, probably, to be thawed and to run away into muddy water in some much shorter space of time. He could not blame his nephew: he could not call him idle, as he would have delighted to do had occasion permitted; but he would not condescend to congratulate him on being great in Greek or mighty in abstract mathematics.
"Well, George," said he, pushing him the bottle as soon as the cloth was gone, "I suppose you have done with Oxford now?"
"Not quite, sir; I have my fellowship to receive."
"Some beggarly two hundred pounds a year, I suppose. Not that I mean to say you should not be glad to have it," he added, thus correcting the impression which his words might otherwise have made. "As you have been so long getting it, it will be better to have that than nothing. But your fellowship won't make it necessary for you to live at Oxford, will it?"
"Oh, no. But then I may perhaps go into the church."
"Oh, the church, eh? Well, it is a respectable profession; only men have to work for nothing in it."
"I wish they did, sir. If we had the voluntary system – "
"You can have that if you like. I know that the Independent ministers – "
"I should not think of leaving the Church of England on any account."
"You have decided, then, to be a clergyman?"
"Oh, no; not decided. Indeed, I really think that if a man will work, he may do better at the bar."
"Very well, indeed – if he have the peculiar kind of talent necessary."
"But then, I doubt whether a practising barrister can ever really be an honest man."
"What?"
"They have such dirty work to do. They spend their days in making out that black is white; or, worse still, that white is black."
"Pshaw! Have a little more charity, master George, and do not be so over-righteous. Some of the greatest men of your country have been lawyers."
"But their being great men won't alter the fact; nor will my being charitable. When two clear-headed men take money to advocate the different sides of a case, each cannot think that his side is true."
"Fiddlestick! But mind, I do not want you to be a lawyer. You must choose for yourself. If you don't like that way of earning your bread, there are others."
"A man may be a doctor, to be sure; but I have no taste that way."
"And is that the end of the list?"
"There is literature. But literature, though the grandest occupation in the world for a man's leisure, is, I take it, a slavish profession."
"Grub Street, eh? Yes, I should think so. You never heard of commerce, I suppose?"
"Commerce. Yes, I have heard of it. But I doubt whether I have the necessary genius."
The old man looked at him as though he doubted whether or no he were being laughed at.
"The necessary kind of genius, I mean," continued George.
"Very likely not. Your genius is adapted to dispersing, perhaps, rather than collecting."
"I dare say it is, sir."
"And I suppose you never heard of a man with a – what is it you call your degree? a double-first – going behind a counter. What sort of men are the double-lasts, I wonder!"
"It is they, I rather think, who go behind the counters," said George, who had no idea of allowing his uncle to have all the raillery on his side.
"Is it, sir? But I rather think they don't come out last when the pudding is to be proved by the eating. Success in life is not to be won by writing Greek verses; not though you write ever so many. A ship-load of them would not fetch you the value of this glass of wine at any market in the world."
"Commerce is a grand thing," said George, with an air of conviction.
"It is the proper work for men," said his uncle, proudly.
"But I have always heard," replied the nephew, "that a man in this country has no right to look to commerce as a profession unless he possesses capital." Mr. Bertram, feeling that the tables had been turned against him, finished his glass of wine and poked the fire.
A few days afterwards the same subject was again raised between them. "You must choose for yourself, George," said the old man; "and you should choose quickly."
"If I could choose for myself – which I am aware that I cannot do; for circumstances, after all, will have the decision – but, if I could choose, I would go into Parliament."
"Go where?" said Mr. Bertram, who would have thought it as reasonable if his nephew had proposed to take a house in Belgrave Square with the view of earning a livelihood.
"Into Parliament, sir."
"Is Parliament a profession? I never knew it before."
"Perhaps not, ordinarily, a money-making profession; nor would I wish to make it so."
"And what county, or what borough do you intend to honour by representing it? Perhaps the University will return you."
"Perhaps it may some of these days."
"And, in the meantime, you mean to live on your fellowship, I suppose?"
"On that and anything else that I can get."
Mr. Bertram sat quiet for some time without speaking, and George also seemed inclined to muse awhile upon the subject. "George," said the uncle, at last, "I think it will be better that we should thoroughly understand each other. You are a good fellow in your way, and I like you well enough. But you must not get into your head any idea that you are to be my heir."
"No, sir; I won't."
"Because it would only ruin you. My idea is that a man should make his own way in the world as I made mine. If you were my son, it may be presumed that I should do as other men do, and give you my money. And, most probably, you would make no better use of it than