“Why couldn’t you live on your pay?” he said hurriedly. “It is only to exercise a little self-denial. You would have a life you liked and were fit for, and a young subaltern has just as much pay as any clerkship you could get. Why not make an effort, and determine to live on your pay? If you have the resolution you could do it. It would be better certainly than sitting behind a desk all day long.” “Wouldn’t it!” said Law, with a deep breath. “Ah! but you wouldn’t require to keep a horse, sitting behind your desk; you wouldn’t have your mess to pay. A fellow must think of all that. I suppose you’ve had enough of me?” he added, looking up with a doubtful smile. “I may go away?” “Don’t go yet.” There sprang up in the Minor Canon’s mind a kindness for this impracticable yet thoroughly practical-minded boy, who was not wise enough to be good for anything, yet who was too wise to plunge into rash expenses and the arduous exertion of living on an officer’s pay--curious instance of folly and wisdom, for even an officer’s pay was surely better than no pay at all. Mr. Ashford did not want to throw Law off, and yet he could not tell what to do with him. “Will you stay and try how much you can follow of young Uxbridge’s work?” he said. “I daresay you have not for the moment anything much better to do.” Law gave a glance of semi-despair from the window upon the landscape, and the distance, and the morning sunshine. No! he had nothing better to do. It was not that he had any pleasures in hand, for pleasures cost money, and he had no money to spend; and he knew by long experience that lounging about in the morning without even a companion is not very lively. Still he yielded and sat down, with a sigh. Mere freedom was something, and the sensation of being obliged to keep in one place for an hour or two, and give himself up to occupation, was disagreeable; a fellow might as well be in an office at once. But he submitted. “Young Uxbridge?” he said. “What is he going in for? The Guards, I suppose.” Law sighed; ah! that was the life. But he was aware that for himself he might just as easily aspire to be a prince as a Guardsman. He took his seat at the table resignedly, and pulled the books towards him, and looked at them with a dislike that was almost pathetic. Hateful tools! but nothing was to be done without them. If he could only manage to get in somewhere by means of the little he knew of them, Law vowed in his soul he would never look at the rubbish again.