We shall see.  For the present I have taken a plunge into the unknown.  My time is all my own, my freedom is absolute, and I am enjoying it.

I have hidden nothing from Lampron.  As my friend he is pleased, I can see, at a resolve which keeps me in Paris; but his prudence cries out upon it.

“It is easy enough to refuse a profession,” he said; “harder to find another in its place.  What do you intend to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“My dear fellow, you seem to be trusting to luck.  At sixteen that might be permissible, at twenty-four it’s a mistake.”

“So much the worse, for I shall make the mistake.  If I have to live on little—­well, you’ve tried that before now; I shall only be following you.”

“That’s true; I have known want, and even now it attacks me sometimes; it’s like influenza, which does not leave its victims all at once; but it is hard, I can tell you, to do without the necessaries of life; as for its luxuries—­”

“Oh, of course, no one can do without its luxuries.”

“You are incorrigible,” he answered, with a laugh.  Then he said no more.  Lampron’s silence is the only argument which struggles in my heart in favor of the Mouillard practice.  Who can guess from what quarter the wind will blow?

CHAPTER XI

IN THE BEATEN PATH

June 5th.

The die is cast; I will not be a lawyer.

The tradition of the Mouillards is broken for good, Sylvestre is defeated for good, and I am free for good—­and quite uncertain of my future.

I have written my uncle a calm, polite, and clearly worded letter to confirm my decision.  He has not answered it, nor did I expect an answer.

I expected, however, that he would be avenged by some faint regret on my part, by one of those light mists that so often arise and hang about our firmest resolutions.  But no such mist has arisen.

Still, Law has had her revenge.  Abandoned at Bourges, she has recaptured me at Paris, for a time.  I realized that it was impossible for me to live on an income of fourteen hundred francs.  The friends whom I discreetly questioned, in behalf of an unnamed acquaintance, as to the means of earning money, gave me various answers.  Here is a fairly complete list of their expedients: 

“If your friend is at all clever, he should write a novel.”

“If he is not, there is the catalogue of the National Library:  ten hours of indexing a day.”

“If he has ambition, let him become a wine-merchant.”

“No; ‘Old Clo,’ and get his hats gratis.”

“If he is very plain, and has no voice, he can sing in the chorus at the opera.”

“Shorthand writer in the Senate is a peaceful occupation.”

“Teacher of Volapuk is the profession of the future.”

“Try ‘Hallo, are you there?’ in the telephones.”