“There again! I think not at all, Esther,” he returned with an effort. “I fancy I have had enough of it. Having worked at Jarndyce and Jarndyce like a galley slave, I have slaked my thirst for the law and satisfied myself that I shouldn’t like it. Besides, I find it unsettles me more and more to be so constantly upon the scene of action. So what,” continued Richard, confident again by this time, “do I naturally turn my thoughts to?”
“I can’t imagine,” said I.
“Don’t look so serious,” returned Richard, “because it’s the best thing I can do, my dear Esther, I am certain. It’s not as if I wanted a profession for life. These proceedings will come to a termination, and then I am provided for. No. I look upon it as a pursuit which is in its nature more or less unsettled, and therefore suited to my temporary condition—I may say, precisely suited. What is it that I naturally turn my thoughts to?”
I looked at him and shook my head.
“What,” said Richard, in a tone of perfect conviction, “but the army!”
“The army?” said I.
“The army, of course. What I have to do is to get a commission; and—there I am, you know!” said Richard.
And then he showed me, proved by elaborate calculations in his pocketbook, that supposing he had contracted, say, two hundred pounds of debt in six months out of the army; and that he contracted no debt at all within a corresponding period in the army—as to which he had quite made up his mind; this step must involve a saving of four hundred pounds in a year, or two thousand pounds in five years, which was a considerable sum. And then he spoke so ingenuously and sincerely of the sacrifice he made in withdrawing himself for a time from Ada, and of the earnestness with which he aspired—as in thought he always did, I know