"Well, what do you make of it?" asked the old soldier, who had watched his face closely all the time. "It certainly reads in a most inviting manner," Phil replied hesitatingly; "but still I scarcely think it would suit me, for I really have had no experience to teach me how to make myself useful. I should be a raw hand who was always in the way, and should be dismissed before a week had passed." "You've no need to worry about that, I can assure you, sir," the sergeant-major answered encouragingly. "My friend will see that you have a fair chance given you, and I'll wager that a fortnight will set you on your feet and make you as knowing as those who've been working a year and longer with the firm. Mind you, though, I've scarcely more than an idea what is really required. Anyone can make himself useful if shown the way, but there must be a lot of work that's difficult and p'r'aps dangerous. One thing I've learnt from Timms, and that is, that animals has to be taken by road to various parties, and that means kind of camp or gipsy life at times. Now look you here, my lad. Just you go right off, read the 'vertisement again, and then think the matter over. It don't do to jump into these affairs, for you might find it a case of `out of the frying-pan into the fire'. There's the place; top of the centre column. Come back this evening and tell me what you have decided on." Phil did as the old soldier suggested. He took the paper to the office, and during the day thought the matter out, finally deciding to make the plunge and find out for himself what roughing it really meant. "After all," he mused, as he absently traced lines and figures on the blotting-paper, "I shall be in just the position I might have occupied had not Father taken me from home. My mother was a poor widow, and long ago I should have had to earn my living and help to keep her too. I'll do it. I cannot put up with this office life. A few years later it might be different, but now it stifles me." Many a wiseacre might shake his head at Phil's cogitations, and more emphatically still at his determination to abandon a certain livelihood for an extremely uncertain one. "Do not think of leaving the office," some would say, "till a better place offers itself"; or "Remain where you are till you are thoroughly acquainted with business life, and can command a higher salary." Certainly the majority would be strongly against his applying for the post proposed by the sergeant-major.