"Ah, that's the question," answered Percival. "Do you happen to know if one has to pass much of an examination to qualify one for breaking stones on the roads now-a-days? Not that I should like that much;" and he sipped his claret reflectively. "It would be rather monotonous, wouldn't it? And I can't help thinking that bits would get into one's eyes." "I think so too," said Godfrey. "Emigrate." "That advice would be good in some cases. But addressed to any one who is notoriously helpless its meaning is obvious." "Are you notoriously helpless?" "Am I not?" "Well, perhaps. What does it mean, then?" "It is a civil way of saying, 'Ruin is inevitably before you--gradual descent in the social scale, ending in misery and starvation. _Would_ you be so kind as to go through the process a few thousand miles away, instead of just outside my front door?' I don't say you mean that--" "I'm sure I won't say I don't," Hammond interrupted him. "Very likely I do: I don't pretend to be any better than my neighbors. But that doesn't matter. If you are so clear-sighted that there's no sending you off under a happy delusion, it would be mere brutality to urge you to undergo sea-sickness in the search for such a fate. As you say, it is attainable here. Will you turn tutor?" Percival winced: "That sort of thing isn't easy to get into, is it? I doubt if I've the least aptitude for teaching, and I never went to college. I should be a very inferior article--not hall-marked." "Then write," said Godfrey. "Cudgel my lazy brains to produce trash, and hate my worthless work, which probably wouldn't sell. I haven't it in me, Godfrey." There was a pause.--"By Jove, though, I _will_ write!" said Percival suddenly. "What will you write?" "Anything. I'll be a lawyer's clerk." "But, my good fellow, you'll have to pay to be articled. I fear you won't make a living for years." "Articled? nonsense! I'll be a copying-clerk--one of those fellows who sit perched up on high stools at a desk all day. I _can_ write, at any rate, so that will be an honest way of getting my living--the only one I can see." Hammond was startled, and expostulated, but in vain. The relief of a decision was so great that Percival clung to it. Hammond talked of a situation in a bank, but Percival hated figures. His scheme gave him a chance of cutting himself loose from all former associations and beginning a new, unknown and lonely life. "No one will take any notice of a lawyer's clerk," he said. "I want to get away and hide myself. I don't want to go into anything where I shall be noticed and encouraged, and expected to rise--don't let any one ever expect me to rise, for I certainly sha'n't--nor where any one can say, 'That is Thorne of Brackenhill's grandson.' I'm shipwrecked, and I've no heart for new ventures." "Not just at present," said Godfrey.