`` In the right place , '' answered Eric , with his ready laugh . `` It is not your kind , perhaps , but there is room and need for all kinds in this lusty young country of ours . Yes , I am going into the business . In the first place , it has been father 's cherished desire ever since I was born , and it would hurt him pretty badly if I backed out now . He wished me to take an Arts course because he believed that every man should have as liberal an education as he can afford to get , but now that I have had it he wants me in the firm . '' `` He would n't oppose you if he thought you really wanted to go in for something else . '' `` Not he . But I do n't really want to -- that 's the point , David , man . You hate a business life so much yourself that you ca n't get it into your blessed noddle that another man might like it . There are many lawyers in the world -- too many , perhaps -- but there are never too many good honest men of business , ready to do clean big things for the betterment of humanity and the upbuilding of their country , to plan great enterprises and carry them through with brain and courage , to manage and control , to aim high and strike one 's aim . There , I 'm waxing eloquent , so I 'd better stop . But ambition , man ! Why , I 'm full of it -- it 's bubbling in every pore of me . I mean to make the department store of Marshall & Company famous from ocean to ocean . Father started in life as a poor boy from a Nova Scotian farm . He has built up a business that has a provincial reputation . I mean to carry it on . In five years it shall have a maritime reputation , in ten , a Canadian . I want to make the firm of Marshall & Company stand for something big in the commercial interests of Canada . Is n't that as honourable an ambition as trying to make black seem white in a court of law , or discovering some new disease with a harrowing name to torment poor creatures who might otherwise die peacefully in blissful ignorance of what ailed them ? ''
`` When you begin XXXXX make poor jokes it is time to stop arguing with you , '' said David , with a shrug of his fat shoulders .
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