April term. Your family has decided to send you a more adequate allowance once you have entered school." Only later did I learn that this in fact was the situation. If I had been told that, I should probably have done what Flatfish asked. But thanks to his intolerably prudent, circumlocutious manner of speech, I only felt irritable, and this caused the whole course of my life to be altered. "If you do not feel like confiding your problems to me I'm afraid there's nothing I can do for you." "What kind of problems?" I really had no idea what he was driving at. "Isn't there something weighing on your heart?" "For example?" "'For example'! What do you yourself want to do now?" "Do you think I ought to get a job?" "No, don't ask me. Tell me what you would really like." "But even supposing I said I wanted to go back to school." "yes, I know, it costs money. But the question is not the money. It's what you feel." Why, I wonder, couldn't he have mentioned the simple fact that the money would be forthcoming from home? That one fact would probably have settled my feelings, but I was left in a fog. "How about it? Have you anything which might be described as aspirations for the future? I suppose one can't expect people one helps to understand how difficult it is to help another person." "I'm sorry." "I'm really worried about you. I'm responsible for you now, and I don't like you to have such halfhearted feelings. I wish you would show me that you're resolved to make a real effort to turn over a new leaf. If, for example, you were to come to me to discuss seriously your plans for the future, I would certainly do what I could. But of course you can't
