to go to college instead of sticking to the shop. And at last he went
away to London, and his poor father died, and the business went all to
pieces, and I've never heard tell of that laddie from the day he went to
London until now. He's died of starvation, most likely, by this time."

"Why, Mr. Innes," I cried, "do you really mean to say that you have never
heard of Mr. Forster's books--his Life of Oliver Goldsmith and 'The
Arrest of the Five Members'? He's one of our great writers now, and if I
could only reach a position like his--" But this prospect was so dazzling
that it fairly took my breath away, and I lapsed into silence, delighted
to find that my old friend's "awful example" should have been a man in
whose footsteps I most ardently desired to tread.

As I have mentioned the opposition which my parents offered to my design
to become a journalist, it is only right that I should say that if it had
not been for the atmosphere in which I lived at home, the accomplishment
of that design would never have become possible. Ours was a home of
narrow and stinted means, but of wide and generous sympathies. We
children learned from the example of our dear father and mother to look
beyond ourselves and our own small interests upon the battle of life as
it was being fought in the world at large. If our table was of the
plainest, there were always books and newspapers in the house, and they
were not there for show. My mother had a genuine taste for literature,
and a judgment which, if not infallible, was at least sound. Many a time
would we discuss together the books we were reading. They were not, as a
rule, hot from the Press; but why should they have been, in the case of a
boy with all the literary treasures of the world still untasted? My
father leaned, as was natural, to the more serious side of literature;
but he had a keen interest in public affairs, and he brought to their
study a sagacious and well-informed mind. Whilst the spirit in which both