Chapter II

Harry Clavering Chooses His Profession

Harry Clavering might not be an usher, but, nevertheless, he was home for the holidays. And who can say where the usher ends and the school-master begins? He, perhaps, may properly be called an usher, who is hired by a private schoolmaster to assist himself in his private occupation, whereas Harry Clavering had been selected by a public body out of a hundred candidates, with much real or pretended reference to certificates of qualification. He was certainly not an usher, as he was paid three hundred a year for his work--which is quite beyond the mark of ushers. So much was certain; but yet the word stuck in his throat and made him uncomfortable. He did not like to reflect that he was home for the holidays.

But he had determined that he would never come home for the holidays again. At Christmas he would leave the school at which he had won his appointment with so much trouble, and go into an open profession. Indeed he had chosen his profession, and his mode of entering it. He would become a civil engineer, and perhaps a land surveyor, and with this view he would enter himself as a pupil in the great house of Beilby & Burton. The terms even had been settled. He was to pay a premium of five hundred pounds and join Mr. Burton, who was settled in the town of Stratton, for twelve months before he placed himself in Mr. Beilby's office in London. Stratton was less than twenty miles from Clavering. It was a comfort to him to think that he could pay this five hundred pounds out of his own earnings, without troubling his father. It was a comfort, even though he had earned that money by "ushering" for the last two years.

Answer the following questions:
1. how many candidates was Harry picked out of?
2. what was his job?
3. had he been hired by public school?
4. did he want to return home for the holidays?
5. what did he want to become?
6. what was he home for?
7. how far away was Stratton from Henry?
8. who was he meeting there?
9. for how long?
10. when was he going to leave school?
11. what was he planning to do?
12. what place did he want to become a pupil of?
13. who had he been hired by?
14. how much would he be paid?
15. is that more than a regular usher?

Numbered answers:
1. out of a hundred
2. an usher
3. no
4. no
5. a civil engineer
6. the holidays.
7. less than twenty miles
8. Mr. Burton
9. twelve months
10. At Christmas
11. go into an open profession
12. the great house of Beilby & Burton
13. a private schoolmaster
14. three hundred a year
15. yes