I Decide and Go To Work

"I'm sorry you don't want to be a soldier," said Mrs Beeton, looking at
me through her glasses, with her head a little more on one side. "If I
had been a young gentleman I should have been a horse-soldier. I
wouldn't be a sailor if I was you, sir."

"Why not?" I said.

"Because they do smell so of tar, and they're so rough and boisterous."

"I think I shall be a gardener," I said.

"A what?"

"A gardener."

"My dear boy!" she cried in horror, "whatever put that in your head?
Why, you couldn't be anything worse. There!--I do declare you startled
me so I've stuck the needle right into my finger, and it bleeds!"

We had many arguments about the matter while I was waiting for answers
to my letters, for no one came down to see me.

Uncle Thomas said he was going to see about my being put in a good
public school, but there was no hurry; and perhaps it would be better to
wait and see what Uncle Johnson meant to do, for he should not like to
offend him, as he was much better off, and it might be doing me harm.

Uncle Johnson wrote a very short letter, saying that I had better write
to my Uncle Frederick.

Second-cousin Willis did not reply for a week, and he said it was the
duty of one of my uncles to provide for me; and he should make a point
of bringing them both to book if they did not see about something for me
before long.