Now, as I looked out upon this fair evening, I became, of a
sudden, possessed of an overmastering desire, a great longing for
field and meadow and hedgerow, for wood and coppice and shady
stream, for sequestered inns and wide, wind-swept heaths, and
ever the broad highway in front. Thus I answered Sir Richard's
question unhesitatingly, and without turning from the window:

"I shall go, sir, on a walking tour through Kent and Surrey into
Devonshire, and thence probably to Cornwall."

"And with a miserable ten guineas in your pocket? Preposterous
--absurd!" retorted Sir Richard.

"On the contrary, sir," said I, "the more I ponder the project,
the more enamored of it I become."

"And when your money is all gone--how then?"

"I shall turn my hand to some useful employment," said I;
"digging, for instance."

"Digging!" ejaculated Sir Richard, "and you a scholar--and what
is more, a gentleman!"

"My dear Sir Richard," said I, "that all depends upon how you
would define a gentleman. To me he would appear, of late years,
to have degenerated into a creature whose chief end in life is to
spend money he has never earned, to reproduce his species with a
deplorable frequency and promiscuity, habitually to drink more
than is good for him, and, between whiles, to fill in his time