 all, except the price of his
dinner and clothes, went home into the tin box; and he shunned comradeship, lest
it should lead him into expenses in spite of himself. Not that Tom was moulded
on the spooney type of the Industrious Apprentice; he had a very strong appetite
for pleasure - would have liked to be a Tamer of horses, and to make a
distinguished figure in all neighbouring eyes, dispensing treats and benefits to
others with well-judged liberality, and being pronounced one of the finest young
fellows of those parts; nay, he determined to achieve these things sooner or
later; but his practical shrewdness told him that the means to such achievements
could only lie for him in present abstinence and self-denial: there were certain
milestones to be passed, and one of the first was the payment of his father's
debts. Having made up his mind on that point, he strode along without swerving,
contracting some rather saturnine sternness, as a young man is likely to do who
has a premature call upon him for self-reliance. Tom felt intensely that common
cause with his father which springs from family pride, and was bent on being
irreproachable as a son; but his growing experience caused him to pass much
silent criticism on the rashness and imprudence of his father's past conduct:
their dispositions were not in sympathy, and Tom's face showed little radiance
during his few home hours. Maggie had an awe of him, against which she struggled
as something unfair to her consciousness of wider thoughts and deeper motives;
but it was of no use to struggle. A character at unity with itself - that
performs what it intends, subdues every counteracting impulse, and has no
visions beyond the distinctly possible - is strong by its very negations.
    You may imagine that Tom's more and more obvious unlikeness to his father
was well fitted to conciliate the maternal aunts and uncles; and Mr. Deane's
favourable reports and predictions to Mr. Glegg concerning Tom's qualifications
for business, began to be discussed amongst them with various acceptance. He was
likely, it appeared, to do the family credit, without causing it any expense and
trouble. Mrs. Pullet had always thought it strange if Tom's excellent
complexion, so entirely that of the Dodsons, did not argue a certainty that he
would turn out well, his juvenile errors of running down the peacock, and
general disrespect to his aunts, only indicating a tinge of Tulliver blood which
he had doubtless outgrown. Mr. Glegg, who had contracted a cautious liking for
Tom ever since his spirited
