answer for it, he will never go through with it--and then he is to change
his profession again!--and all the expense and all the trouble is to fall
on me!--and I am to provide for him at last!--In all probability, by the
time Buckhurst knows his own mind, the paralytic incumbent will be dead,
and the living of Chipping-Friars given away.--And where am I to find nine
hundred a year, I pray you, at a minute's notice, for this conscientious
youth, who, by that time, will tell me his scruples were all nonsense, and
that I should have known better than to listen to them? Nine hundred a year
does not come in a man's way at every turn of his life; and if he gives it
up now, it is not my fault--let him look to it."

Mr. Percy replied, "that Buckhurst had declared himself ready to abide
by the consequences, and that he promised he would never complain of the
lot he had chosen for himself, much less reproach his father for his
compliance, and that he was resolute to maintain himself at the bar."

"Yes: very fine.--And how long will it be before he makes nine hundred a
year at the bar?"

Mr. Percy, who knew that none but worldly considerations made any
impression upon this father, suggested that he would have to maintain
his son during the life of the paralytic incumbent, and the expense of
Buckhurst's being at the bar would not probably be greater; and though it
might be several years before he could make nine hundred, or, perhaps,
one hundred a year at the bar, yet that if he succeeded, which, with
Buckhurst's talents, nothing but the want of perseverance could prevent, he
might make nine thousand a year by the profession of the law--more than in
the scope of human probability, and with all the patronage his father's
address could procure, he could hope to obtain in the church.