At any rate, he never professed to be particularly ambitious in any such way, and in that respect was very different from Hawkesbury, who, by the time he left Stonebridge House, six months before me, to go to a big public school, had quite impressed me with the worth of his character.
But this is a digression.

As I was saying, I left Stonebridge House a good deal wilder, and more rackety, and more sophisticated, than I had entered it two years before.

However, I left it also with considerably more knowledge of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; and that in my uncle's eye appeared to be of far more moment than my moral condition.
"Fred," he said to me the day after I had got home, and after I had returned from a triumphant march through Brownstroke, to show myself off to my old comrades generally, and Cad Prog in particular--"Fred," said my uncle, "I am going to send you to London." "To London!" cried I, not knowing exactly whether to be delighted, or astonished, or alarmed, or all three--"to London." "Yes.

You must get a situation, and do something to earn your living." I ruminated over this announcement, and my uncle continued, "You are old enough to provide for yourself, and I expect you to do so." There was a pause, at the end of which, for lack of any better remark, I said, "Yes." "The sooner you start the better," continued my uncle.

"I have marked a few advertisements in that pile of newspapers," added he, pointing to a dozen or so of papers on his table.