"
This certainly had not a profitable appearance, and I shook my head
as if I would imply that it would be difficult to lay by much
accumulative capital from such a source of income.
"But the thing is," said Herbert Pocket, "that you look about you.
That's the grand thing. You are in a counting-house, you know, and
you look about you."
It struck me as a singular implication that you couldn't be out of
a counting-house, you know, and look about you; but I silently
deferred to his experience.
"Then the time comes," said Herbert, "when you see your opening.
And you go in, and you swoop upon it and you make your capital, and
then there you are! When you have once made your capital, you have
nothing to do but employ it."
This was very like his way of conducting that encounter in the
garden; very like. His manner of bearing his poverty, too, exactly
corresponded to his manner of bearing that defeat. It seemed to me
that he took all blows and buffets now with just the same air as
he had taken mine then. It was evident that he had nothing around
him but the simplest necessaries, for everything that I remarked
upon turned out to have been sent in on my account from the
coffee-house or somewhere else.
Yet, having already made his fortune in his own mind, he was so
unassuming with it that I felt quite grateful to him for not being
puffed up.
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