"Good management," then, let me call the innocent arts by which I now
sought to insinuate my project into favor and assent with my
unsuspecting family. At first I began with Roland. I easily induced
him to read some of the books, full of the charm of Australian life,
which Trevanion had sent me; and so happily did those descriptions suit
his own erratic tastes, and the free, half-savage man that lay rough and
large within that soldierly nature, that he himself, as it were, seemed
to suggest my own ardent desire, sighed, as the careworn Trevanion had
done, that "he was not my age," and blew the flame that consumed me,
with his own willing breath. So that when at last--wandering one day
over the wild moors--I said, knowing his hatred of law and lawyers:
"Alas, uncle, that nothing should be left for me but the Bar!" Captain
Roland struck his cane into the peat and exclaimed, "Zounds,
sir! the Bar and lying, with truth and a world fresh from God before
you!"

"Your hand, uncle,--we understand each other. Now help me with those
two quiet hearts at home!"

"Plague on my tongue! what have I done?" said the Captain, looking
aghast. Then, after musing a little time, he turned his dark eye on me
and growled out, "I suspect, young sir, you have been laying a trap for
me; and I have fallen into it, like an old fool as I am."

"Oh, sir, I? you prefer the Bar!--"

"Rogue!"

"Or, indeed, I might perhaps get a clerkship in a merchant's office?"