"Get your own head above water first," said Bobus. "Here's some good
advice gratis, though I've no expectation of your taking it. Don't
go in for study in the old quarters! Go to Edinburgh or Paris or
anywhere you please, but cut the connection, or you'll never be rid
of loafers for life. Wherever mother is, all the rest will
gravitate. Mark me, Allen is spoilt for anything but a walking
gentleman, Armine will never be good for work, and how many years do
you give Janet's Athenian to come to grief in? Then will they return
to the domestic hearth with a band of small Grecians, while Dr. Lucas
Brownlow is reduced to a rotifer or wheel animal, circulating in a
trap collecting supplies, with 'sic vos non vobis' for his motto."
Jock looked startled. How if there be no such rotifer?" he said.
"You don't really think there will be nothing to depend when we are
both gone?"
"When?"
"Yes, I've a chance of getting on Cameron's staff in India."
"Oh, that's all right, old fellow! Why, you'll be my next
neighbour."
"But about mother? You don't seriously think Ali and Armie will be
nothing but dead weights on her?"
"Only as long as there's anybody to hold them up", said Bobus,
perceiving that his picture had taken an effect the reverse of what
he intended.
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