is known as banking, showing how in that trade a profit was to be made by
lending the money of one man to another, and often of a man's own money to
himself, without engaging one's own savings or fortune.

George, to whom such matters were unfamiliar, listened attentively, and it
seemed to him with every word that dropped from his father that a wider
and wider horizon of material comfort and worldly grandeur was spreading
out before him. He had hitherto had no idea that such great rewards were
attached to services so slight in themselves, and certainly so valueless
to the community. The career sketched out for him by his father appealed
to him most strongly, and when that gentleman had completed his advice he
assured him that he would follow it in every particular.

George's father was overjoyed to find his son so reasonable. He sat down
at once to write the note which he had planned, to an old friend and
connection by marriage, Mr. Repton, of Repton and Greening; he posted it
that night and bade the lad prepare for the solemnity of a private
interview with the head of the firm upon the morrow.

Before George left the house next morning his father laid before him, with
the pomp which so great an occasion demanded, certain rules of conduct
which should guide not only his entry into life but his whole conduct
throughout its course. He emphasized the value of self-respect, of a
decent carriage, of discretion, of continuous and tenacious habits of
industry, of promptitude, and so forth; when, urged by I know not what
demon whose pleasure it is ever to disturb the best plans of men, the old
gentleman had the folly to add the following words as he rose to his feet
and laid his hand heavily upon his son's shoulder:

"Above all things, George, tell the truth. I was young and now am old. I