meet; and then came a new feeling, that of restraint.

"There is Ashton," he thought, "can go out when he likes and where he
likes, without its being necessary to say where he is going or what he
is going to do, and he can come in at night without being obliged to
account for all his actions like a child. If I happen to stay out, there
is Uncle Brunton and my mother in a great state of excitement about me,
which I don't think is right. I really do not wonder that the clerks
have made me a laughing-stock. All this while I have lived in London I
have seen nothing; have not been to any of the places of amusement; and
have not been a bit like the young men with whom I get thrown into
contact. I think Ashton is right, after all, in saying that when he was
at school he did as school-boys did, and when he came to London he did
as the Londoners do. Far be it from me to be undutiful to those who care
for me; but I think, as a young man, I do owe a duty to myself,
different altogether from that which belonged to me as a schoolboy."

These were all new thoughts to George: he had never felt or even thought
of restraint before; he had never even expressed a wish to do as other
young men did, in wasting precious time on useless amusements; he had
always looked forward to an evening at home with pleasure, and had never
felt the least inclination to wander forth in search of recreation
elsewhere. Nay, he had always condemned it; and when Lawson or Williams,
or any of the other clerks, had proposed such a thing to him, he never
minded bearing their ridicule in declining.

And here was George's danger. He was upon his guard with his
fellow-clerks, and was able to keep his resolution not to adopt their
ideas, nor fall into their ways and habits; but when those very evils he
condemned in them were presented to him in a different form by Harry