"Tommy, my boy, don't be excited," Sir Roland said, as gravely as he could contrive; "I have seen a great deal of the world, though I am young; and of course I was aware, from the very first moment, that you belonged to the commercial classes; which (as I read the other day) are rapidly becoming the mainstay of England, against the wild inrush of anarchy. You know, I told you that, the other night, after we had cut the mooring-ropes of the three machines of the Radical. Very well, if you are in trade, where is the difference between big and little? The retail dealers are the loftier class, because they make less profit. I have thought about these things, for several hours, and I am not misled by what I read. And the conclusion I have come to is just this--that the retail man is of a higher class, in every way, than the wholesale one." "But," I said, as firmly as I could say it, and proudly repressing all tendency to tears, "we are wholesale, wholesale all over. Even father can't say less than that, when he wants to run down all of us, to keep our ideas from spending." "Never mind, Tommy, what you are," Sir Roland replied, as he buttoned up his coat; "you may be a gentleman, in any calling, if you don't run other people down. That is the surest sign of a cad; and I've never seen any sign of that, in you. Now, I must be off, like the wind, for home; because I am resolved to come back in time for you. We shall want you, all the more for this, friend Tommy." "I won't come now, if you ask me;" I called out, as he stuck his legs round his pony; "because I shall know, you are thinking about the dips." "Keep out your things from the rest, and have them ready. The Station-bus goes at two o'clock. I shall come with a light trap, at half-past one; and nobody will ask you about coming." By this he meant, that I should have to come _nolens volens_, as we said at school; but having more faith in my father's knowledge of the world, I did not expect it. However, with mother's consent, my clothes and books were packed in my own little box, while father laughed, and said, "Please yourselves; so long as they go safe to Maiden Lane." But soon he was obliged to confess his mistake, and let mother triumph over him. For while the bus was standing at the door, and our luggage was going down heavily, and my father, in the window, was taking his last look at a great ship in the distance, a quick light sound of wheels came up the staircase; and running out that way, I saw a horse with his forehead pulled up right against the forehead of the bus-horse, as if they were playing at "conquerors." The new horse was beautiful, and full of pride; and the bus-horse looked at him, with mild reproach, between his shabby blinkers, as if he were saying--"Wait till you grow old, and you won't come flustering a poor horse-brother, with your dash, and frippery, and self-conceit."