“You will require a profession in which you can be your own master from the very beginning. It wouldn’t do to be subordinate to anybody who hadn’t had a letter from Tolstoy, or perhaps even read ‘Anna Karénine.’ If you go in for the Church, for example, you will have to do what you are told until you get a church of your own, when you’ll be always having rows with your parishioners and elders, for, of course, you’ll have to preach the Tolstoy gospel or the tests will get in the way. If you become a doctor you won’t make a living, because you will want to doctor the widows and the fatherless, who are no use in the matter of fees. I admit the lawyer idea is absurd――even without Tolstoy and the Gospels it wouldn’t have done――and no doubt your father only thought of it because he’s a solicitor himself. You’ll have to be content with something that fulfils perhaps one or two of the tests. Then, when you get married and have a swarm of children, your wife will rise in revolt against them _all_.” “I can choose a suitable wife, and there’s no need to have a swarm of children. I shall have just as many as I can afford to bring up properly.... That reminds me, I brought you down the ‘Kreutzer Sonata.’ It’s in my bag.” “That’s all right; but it’s always people like you, frightfully earnest and moral and all the rest of it, who have families of twelve or thirteen.” “I tell you I won’t have them,” said Owen, impatiently. “But Tolstoy himself――――” “I don’t care a hang about Tolstoy.” “Oh――h! Owen!” “Tolstoy could give his children a decent start in life; and if he can do that, the more such a man has the better.” During the latter part of this conversation, all of which Owen was taking in dead seriousness, we were undressing, and I now dived into the deep, green, glittering water. I turned on my back and lay watching Owen, distinctly uneasy, stand hesitating on the edge of the rock. “Is it cold?” he asked. “No; come along.” He pulled his shirt slowly off. “I brought you down some of the short stories too.” I laughed. “All right; I’ll read them when I come out.” But Owen was really anxious now only about the temperature of the water. He floundered in and came up spluttering. I was a much better swimmer than he, and circled about him, showing off, delighting in the power I felt. We swam out for fifty yards or so, and I timed my stroke with Owen’s. He looked very funny. His eyes stared straight before him as if he were set on some desperate adventure. On our way back I splashed him a little and he got angry, swallowing a lot of water. I told him how contrary to the teaching of the Gospels this was; when I asked him to drink a pint of salt water he should swallow a quart; etc., etc.