“That is nonsense,” said his uncle, promptly. “That’s a question of age entirely. At your time of life you think that all that is to be desired is to be in the world, and you don’t understand that the world is not in one place as much as another, not the grand world in London, or the business world in Liverpool, but is just your world wherever you may happen to be.” This was above Harry, who gaped slightly, and opened his eyes with curiosity and wonder. “You will scarcely say that this is the world like London,” he said, with that smile of youthful comment upon the mysterious obtuseness of their elders which is general to every new generation. “But this is just what I do say, my boy; you have your little world round about you, and neither is it bigger in the noise of a big place, nor smaller in the quiet of a little one. We are capable just of so much, and that we get wherever we are.” Harry opened his eyes a little more; but he thought it just as well to say nothing. He thought no doubt this was a kind of dotage; but resorted quickly to his own concerns, which were so much more important than any philosophy of his uncle’s. “I don’t think,” he said, “if I were once out of it that I should want to come back.” “Ah, well, I should probably have said the same thing at your age. One’s ideas change from twenty to seventy,” said Mr. Henry, feeling that perhaps after all it was expedient to steer clear of generalities. “Let us see what Eadie has sent us for luncheon. I don’t often eat lunch myself; when one breakfasts rather late, as I do, it is as well to reserve one’s self till dinner; but you were a great deal earlier, Harry, and besides at your age you are always hungry--blessed provision of nature.” “I don’t think I’m always hungry; in the office one can’t indulge in much eating,” said Harry, a little resentful. “When I was like you we used to go out to a little tavern. I daresay it’s gone now. I could show you the place--I could go there blindfold, I believe--where they made the most excellent chops. Ah! there are no such chops now. Mrs. Eadie sends us very nice cutlets, but it is not the same thing. We made our dinner of them, and when we got back to our lodgings, in my time, we had tea.” “So most of us have now,” said Harry, “it saves a great deal of trouble; it’s a big dining place now, there’s a grill-room as big as the Market--” Mr. Henry held up his hands in anxious deprecation. “Don’t tell me anything about it. I know; a place like a railway-station; the very railway-station itself has been invented since my time. Your world has become a great deal busier and more hurried; but it is not so comfortable, Harry. I am fond of good cookery, but I never got anything better than those chops. As for the tea it always appeared to me about the worst thing in the shape of a meal that a depraved imagination could invent--very bad for the digestion, and neither nourishing nor nice.”