"But, George, where will be the good of such things to you?" cried Farmer Apperley, not allowing him to end the catalogue. "Latin and Greek and mathematics! What next, I wonder!" "I don't see much good in giving a boy that sort of education myself," put in Mr. Chattaway, before any one else had time to speak. "Unless he is to take up a profession, the classics only lie fallow in the mind. I hated them, I know that; I and my brother, too. Many and many a caning we have had over our Latin, until we wished the books at the bottom of the sea. Twelve months after we left school we could not have construed a page, had it been put before us. That's all the good Latin did for us." "I shall keep up my Latin and Greek," observed George, very independently, "although I may have to leave school." "Why need you keep it up?" asked Mr. Chattaway, turning full upon George. "Why?" echoed George. "I like it, for one thing. And a knowledge of the classics is necessary to a gentleman." "Necessary to what?" cried Mr. Chattaway. "To a gentleman," repeated George. "Oh," said Mr. Chattaway. "Do you think of being one?" "Yes, I do," repeated George, in tones as decisive as any ever used by his step-mother. This bold assertion nearly took away the breath of Farmer Apperley. Had George Ryle announced his intention of becoming a convict, Mr. Apperley's consternation had been scarcely less. The same word bears different constructions to different minds. That of "gentleman" in the mouth of George, could only bear one to the simple farmer. "Hey, lad! What wild notions have ye been getting into your head?" he asked. "George," said Mrs. Ryle almost at the same moment, "are you going to give me trouble at the very outset? There is nothing for you to look forward to but work. Your father said it." "Of course I look forward to work," returned George, as cheerfully as he could speak that sad afternoon. "But that will not prevent my being a gentleman." "George, I fancy you may be somewhat misusing terms," remarked the surgeon, who was an old inhabitant of that rustic district, and a little more advanced than the rest. "What you meant to say was, that you would be a good man, honourable and upright; nothing mean about you. Was it not?" "Yes," said George, after an imperceptible hesitation. "Something of that sort." "The boy did not express himself clearly, you see," said Mr. King, looking round on the rest. "He means well." "Don't you ever talk about being a gentleman again, my lad," cried Farmer Apperley, with a sagacious nod. "It would make the neighbours think you were going in for bad ways. A gentleman is one who follows the hounds in white smalls and scarlet coat, goes to dinners and drinks wine, and never puts his hands to anything, but leads an idle life." "That is not the sort of gentleman I meant," said George. "It is to be hoped not," replied the farmer. "A man may do this if he has a good fat balance at his banker's, but not else."