Page 326 - GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Great Expectations

tobacco, and rum. Also to Ceylon, specially for elephants’
tusks.’
‘You will want a good many ships,’ said I.
‘A perfect fleet,’ said he.

Quite overpowered by the magnificence of these
transactions, I asked him where the ships he insured
mostly traded to at present?
‘I haven’t begun insuring yet,’ he replied. ‘I am looking
about me.’
Somehow, that pursuit seemed more in keeping with
Barnard’s Inn. I said (in a tone of conviction), ‘Ah-h!’
‘Yes. I am in a counting-house, and looking about me.’
‘Is a counting-house profitable?’ I asked.
‘To - do you mean to the young fellow who’s in it?’ he
asked, in reply.
‘Yes; to you.’
‘Why, n-no: not to me.’ He said this with the air of
one carefully reckoning up and striking a balance. ‘Not
directly profitable. That is, it doesn’t pay me anything, and
I have to - keep myself.’
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.

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