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.
"But the thing is," said Herbert Pocket, "that you look about you.
That's the grand thing.

You are in a counting-house, you know, and you look about you." It struck me as a singular implication that you couldn't be out of a counting-house, you know, and look about you; but I silently deferred to his experience.
"Then the time comes," said Herbert, "when you see your opening.

And you go in, and you swoop upon it and you make your capital, and then there you are! When you have once made your capital, you have nothing to do but employ it." This was very like his way of conducting that encounter in the garden; very like.