He said it to justify himself for drawing
back, I am quite sure, but it did me no good at home.
My father had plenty of honourable pride, and he would hear of no
compromise. He said that he should pay the full premium for me that
Uncle Henry's other clerks had had to pay, and from this no revulsion of
feeling on my uncle's part would move him. He was quite bland with Uncle
Henry, and he was not quite bland towards me.
When I fairly grasped the situation (and I contrived to get a pretty
clear account of it from my mother), there rushed upon me the conviction
that a new phase had come over my prospects. When I put aside my own
longings for my father's will; and every time that office life seemed
intolerable to me, and I was tempted to break my bonds, and thought
better of it and settled down again, this thought had always remained
behind: "I will try; and if the worst comes to the worst, and I really
cannot settle down into a clerk, I can but run away then." But
circumstances had altered my case, I felt that now I must make up my
mind for good and all. My father would have to make some little
sacrifices to find the money, and when it was once paid, I could not let
it be in vain.
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