He means to make a man of business of me.

And here I have been, for the last three weeks, at a Tea Broker's office in the city, in consequence.

They all say it's a good opening for me, and talk about the respectability of commercial pursuits.

I don't want to be respectable, and I hate commercial pursuits.

What is the good of forcing me into a merchant's office, when I can't say my Multiplication table?
Ask my mother about that: _she'll_ tell you! Only fancy me going round tea warehouses in filthy Jewish places like St.Mary-Axe, to take samples, with a blue bag to carry them about in; and a dirty junior clerk, who cleans his pen in his hair, to teach me how to fold up parcels! Isn't it enough to make my blood boil to think of it?
I can't go on, and I won't go on in this way! Mind you're at home to-morrow; I'm coming to speak to you about how I'm to begin learning to be an artist.