His first idea had been to communicate the
details in writing; but the partners had, on reflection, thought that
the necessary decision might be more readily obtained by a personal
interview with his father and his friends. He had laid aside the pen
accordingly, and had resigned himself to the railway on the spot.
After this preliminary statement, Frank proceeded to describe the
proposal which his employers had addressed to him, with every external
appearance of viewing it in the light of an intolerable hardship.
The great firm in the City had obviously made a discovery in relation to
their clerk, exactly similar to the discovery which had formerly forced
itself on the engineer in relation to his pupil. The young man, as they
politely phrased it, stood in need of some special stimulant to stir
him up. His employers (acting under a sense of their obligation to
the gentleman by whom Frank had been recommended) had considered the
question carefully, and had decided that the one promising use to which
they could put Mr. Francis Clare was to send him forthwith into another
quarter of the globe.
As a consequence of this decision, it was now, therefore, proposed that
he should enter the house of their correspondents in China; that he
should remain there, familiarizing himself thoroughly on the spot with
the tea trade and the silk trade for five years; and that he should
return, at the expiration of this period, to the central establishment
in London.
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