At which climax old Jem laid his curly head on his arms, and I began to think very seriously.

“How much do you owe?”

Jem couldn’t say.  He thought he could reckon up, so I got a pencil and made a list from his dictation, and from his memory, which was rather vague.  When it was done (and there seemed to be a misty margin beyond), I was horrified.  “Why, my dear fellow!” I exclaimed, “if you’d had your allowance ever so regularly, it wouldn’t have covered this sort of thing.”

“I know, I know,” said poor Jem, clutching remorsefully at his curls.  “I’ve been a regular fool!  Jack! whatever you do—­never tick.  It’s the very mischief.  You never know what you owe, and so you feel vague and order more.  And you never know what you don’t owe, which is worse, for sometimes you’re in such despair, it would be quite a relief to catch some complaint and die.  It’s like going about with a stone round your neck, and nobody kind enough to drown you.  I can’t stand any more of it.  I shall make a clean breast to Father, and if he can’t set me straight, I won’t go back; I’ll work on the farm sooner, and let him pay my bills instead of my schooling—­and serve old Pompous right.”

Poor Jem! long after he had cheered up and gone to bed, I sat up and thought.  When my premium was paid where was the money for Jem’s debts to come from?  And would my father be in the humour to pay them?  If he did not, Jem would not go back to school.  Of that I was quite certain.  Jem had thought over his affairs, which was an effort for him, but he always thought in one direction.  His thoughts never went backwards and forwards as mine did.  If he had made up his mind, there was no more prospect of his changing it than if he had been my father.  And if the happy terms between them were broken, and Jem’s career checked when he was doing so well!—­the scales that weighed my own future were becoming very uneven now.

I clasped my hands and thought.  If I ran away, the money would be there for Jem’s debts, and his errors would look pale in the light of my audacity, and he would be dearer than ever at home, whilst for me were freedom, independence (for I had not a doubt of earning bread-and-cheese, if only as a working man):  perhaps a better understanding with my father when I had been able to prove my courage and industry, or even when he got the temperate and dutiful letter I meant to post to him when I was fairly off; and beyond all, the desire of my eyes, the sight of the world.

Should I stay now?  And for what?  To see old Jem at logger-heads with my father, and perhaps demoralized by an inferior school?  To turn my own back and shut my eyes for ever on all that the wide seas embrace; my highest goal to be to grow as rich as Uncle Henry or richer, and perhaps as mean or meaner?  Should I choose for life a life I hated, and set seals to my choice by drinking silver-top with the Jew-clerk?—­No, Moses, no!