“If you mean the Zoological Gardens, I like that,” said Law, beginning to see the fun of this examination; “and I should be very fond of horses, if I had the chance. But that has nothing to say to an office. Figures, ha? yes, I know. But I always hated counting. I see you think there is nothing to be made of me. That is what I think myself. I have often told her so. I shall have to ’list, as I have told her.” Law looked at his companion with a little curiosity as he said this, hoping to call forth an alarmed protestation. But Mr. Ashford was not horrified. He was about to say, “It is the very best thing you could do,” but stopped, on consideration, for Lottie’s sake. “You are a man to look at,” he said, “though you are young. Has it never occurred to you till now to think what you would like to be? You did not think you could go on for ever stumbling over ten lines of Virgil? I beg your pardon, I don’t mean to be rude; but the most of us have to live by something, and a young man like you ought to have a notion what he is going to be about. You thought of the Civil Service?” “I suppose Lottie did,” said Law, getting up and seizing his book. “It is all her doing, from first to last; it is she that has always been pushing and pushing. Yes; what’s the use of trying Virgil? I always felt it was all bosh. I don’t know it, and what’s more, I don’t want to know it. I am not one for reading; it’s not what I would ever have chosen; it is all Lottie, with her nagging and her pushing. And so I may go home and tell her you don’t think me fit for anything?” he added suddenly, with a slight break of unexpected feeling in his voice. “Don’t do anything of the kind. If you would only be open with me, tell me what are your own ideas and intentions----” “That’s what everybody says,” said Law, with a smile of half-amused superiority; “open your mind. But what if you’ve got no mind to open? _I_ don’t care what I do; I don’t intend anything; get me in somewhere, and I’ll do the best I can. A fellow can’t speak any fairer than that.” The Minor Canon looked at him with that gaze of baffled inquiry which is never so effectually foiled as by the candid youth who has no intentions of his own and no mind to open. Law stood before him, stretching out his useless strength, with his useless book again under his arm--a human being thoroughly wasted; no place for him in the Civil Service, no good use in any of the offices. Why shouldn’t he ’list if he wished it? It was the very best thing for him to do. But when Mr. Ashford thought of Lottie this straightforward conclusion died on his lips.