otherwise been able to reach. His religion had begun with Miss Redwood
and he had clung to it instinctively as he had clung to the vague
memory of his mother. No word of mine and no teaching was to destroy
so precious a heritage. He was not goody-goody about it. No boy who
did and said and thought the things that Jerry did could be accused of
prudery or sentimentalism. But in his quieter moods I knew that he
thought deeply of sacred things.

But this conversation with Jerry had warned me that the time was
approaching when the boy would want to think for himself. Already in
our nature-talks some of his questions had embarrassed me. He had seen
birds hatched from their eggs and had marveled at it. The mammals and
their young had mystified him and he had not been able to understand
it. I had reverted to the process of development of the embryo of the
seed into a perfect plant. I had waxed scientific, he had grown
bewildered. We had reached our _impasse_. In the end we had
compromised. Unable to comprehend, Jerry had ascribed the propagation
of the species to a miracle of God. And since that was the precise
truth I had been content to let the matter rest there.

But there was another problem that our conversation had suggested: the
choice of a vocation. The proposition of the misguided Flynn had made
me aware of the fact that I was already letting my charge drift toward
the maws of the great unknown which began just beyond the Wall without
a plan of life save that he should be a "gentleman." It occurred to me
with alarming suddenness that the term "gentleman" was that frequently
applied to persons who had no occupation or visible means of support.
Nowhere in John Benham's instructions was there mention of any plan
for a vocation. Obviously if the old man had intended Jerry for a
business career he would have said so, and the omission of any exact