The worthy Jowlson, who had meanwhile engaged as book-keeper upon a salary of seven hundred dollars a year--one of the rare prizes--was busy enough for his friend, consulting, wondering, planning.

Mr.Gray could not preach, nor practice medicine, nor surgery, nor law, because men must be instructed in those professions; and people will not trust a suit of a thousand dollars, or a sore throat, or a broken thumb, in the hands of a man who has not fitted himself carefully for the responsibility.

He could not make boots, nor build houses, nor shoe horses, nor lay stone wall, nor bake bread, nor bind books.

Men must be educated to be shoemakers, carpenters, blacksmiths, bakers, masons, or book-binders.

What _could_ be done?
Nobody suggested an insurance office, or an agency for diamond mines on Newport beach; for, although it was the era of good feeling, those ingenious infirmaries for commercial invalids were not yet invented.
"I have it!" cried Jowlson, one day, rushing in, out of breath, among several gentlemen who were holding a council about their friend Gray--that is, who had met in a bank parlor, and were talking about his prospects--"I have it! and how dull we all are! What shall he do?
Why, keep a school, to be sure!--a school!--a school! Take children, and be a parent to them!" "How dull we all were!" cried the gentlemen in chorus.