The things we do!

I think Clive's
father never liked or understood the lad's choice of a profession. He
acquiesced in it as he would in any of his son's wishes. But, not being a
poet himself, he could not see the nobility of that calling; and felt
secretly that his son was demeaning himself by pursuing the art of
painting. "Had he been a soldier, now," thought Thomas Newcome, "(though
I prevented that) had he been richer than he is, he might have married
Ethel, instead of being unhappy as he now is, God help him! I remember my
own time of grief well enough: and what years it took before my wound
wound was scarred over."
So with these things occupying his brain Thomas Newcome artfully invited
Barnes, his nephew, to dinner under pretence of talking of the affairs of
the great B. B. C. With the first glass of wine at dessert, and according
to the Colonel's good old-fashioned custom of proposing toasts, they
drank the health of the B. B. C. Barnes drank the toast with all his
generous heart.


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