but I did not see the _sequitur_. Rupert, however, cared little
for logical inferences, usually asserting such things as he wished,
and wishing such as he asserted. After a short pause, he continued the
discourse.

"You are now substantially your own master," he said, "and can do as
you please. Should you go to sea and not like it, you have only to
come back to this place, where you will be just as much the master as
if you had remained here superintending cattle, cutting hay, and
fattening pork, the whole time."

"I am not my own master, Rupert, any more than you are yourself. I am
your father's ward, and must so remain for more than five years to
come. I am just as much under his control as you, yourself."

Rupert laughed at this, and tried to persuade me it would be a good
thing to relieve his worthy fether of all responsibility in the
affair, if I had seriously determined never to go to Yale, or to be a
lawyer, by going off to sea clandestinely, and returning when I was
ready. If I ever was to make a sailor, no time was to be lost; for all
with whom he had conversed assured him the period of life when such
things were best learned, was between sixteen and twenty. This I
thought probable enough, and I parted from my friend with a promise of
conversing further with him on the subject at an early opportunity.

I am almost ashamed to confess that Rupert's artful sophism nearly
blinded my eyes to the true distinction between right and wrong. If
Mr. Hardinge really felt himself bound by my father's wishes to
educate me for the bar, and my own repugnance to the profession was
unconquerable, why should I not relieve him from the responsibility at