"Wall," cries the Scot, "I find that the lad knows as much about Greek
and Latin as I knew myself when I was eighteen years of age."
"My dear Binnie, is it possible? You, the best scholar in all India!"
"And which amounted to exactly nothing. By the admirable seestem purshood
at your public schools, just about as much knowledge as he could get by
three months' application at home. Mind ye, I don't say he would apply;
it is most probable he would do no such thing. But, at the cost of--how
much? two hundred pounds annually--for five years--he has acquired about
five and twenty guineas' worth of classical leeterature--enough, I dare
say, to enable him to quote Horace respectably through life, and what
more do you want from a young man of his expectations? I think I should
send him into the army, that's the best place for him--there's the least
to do and the handsomest clothes to wear," says the little wag, daintily
taking up the tail of his friend's coat. "In earnest now, Tom Newcome, I
think your boy is as fine a lad as I ever set eyes on. He seems to have
intelligence and good temper. He carries his letter of recommendation in
his countenance; and with the honesty--and the rupees, mind ye,--which he
inherits from his father, the deuce is in it if he can't make his way.
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