And as I also know what agricultural prices were _before_ the
war, I can calculate without the aid of vulgar fractions, which, by
the by, I never reached, what they'll be when it's over, and the
thundering expenditure now going on is stopped. In two or three weeks,
people generally will get a dim notion of all this; and I sell,
therefore, whilst I can, at top prices.'
The shrewdness of the calculation struck me at once. 'You will take
another farm when one can be had on easier terms than now, I suppose?'
'Yes; if I can manage it. And I _will_ manage it. Between ourselves,
after all the old man's debts are paid, I shall only have about nine
or ten hundred pounds to the good, even by selling at the present
tremendous rates; so it was time, you see, I pulled up, and rubbed the
fog out of my eyes a bit. And, hark ye, Master Sharp!' he added, as we
rose and shook hands with each other--'I have now done _playing_ with
the world--it's a place of work and business; and I'll do my share of
it so effectually, that my children, if I have any, shall, if I do
not, reach the class of landed gentry; and this you'll find, for all
your sneering, will come about all the more easily that neither they
nor their father will be encumbered with much educational lumber.
Good-by.'
I did not again see my old school-fellow till the change he had
predicted had thoroughly come to pass.
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