It needed my mother's death to make a more sensible fellow of me, and by that time it was too late.

I mean I was too old to be trained into profitable business habits.

Up to nineteen I had been little more than an errand and office boy, and all through the after years I never got a much better position.' 'I can't understand that,' remarked Monica thoughtfully.
'Why not ?' 'You seem to--to be the kind of man that would make your way.' 'Do I ?' The description pleased him; he laughed cheerfully.

'But I never found what my way was to be.

I have always hated office work, and business of every kind; yet I could never see an opening in any other direction.