I shall be his
pupil for Latin and Greek, and try and make up for lost time. I know
there is nothing like a knowledge of the classics to give a man good
breeding. I shall be able to help him with my knowledge of the world,
and to keep him out of the way of sharpers and a pack of rogues who
commonly infest young men. And we will travel together, first through
England, Scotland, and Ireland, for every man should know his own
country, and then we will make the grand tour. Then by the time he is
eighteen he will be able to choose his profession. He can go into the
army, or, if he prefers, the church, or the law--they are open to him;
and when he goes to the university, by which time I shall be, in all
probability, a major-general, I can come back to India for a few years,
and return by the time he has a wife and a home for his old father; or,
if I die, I shall have done the best for him, and my boy will be left
with the best education, a tolerable small fortune, and the blessing of
his old father."
Such were the plans of the kind schemer. How fondly he dwelt on them, how
affectionately he wrote of them to his boy! How he read books of travels
and looked over the maps of Europe! and said, "Rome, sir, glorious Rome;
it won't be very long, major, before my boy and I see the Colosseum, and
kiss the Pope's toe.
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