to an adequate understanding of the chief character about to be
presented. Imprimis: I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been
filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the
best. Hence, though I belong to a profession proverbially energetic and
nervous, even to turbulence, at times, yet nothing of that sort have I
ever suffered to invade my peace. I am one of those unambitious lawyers
who never addresses a jury, or in any way draws down public applause;
but, in the cool tranquillity of a snug retreat, do a snug business
among rich men's bonds, and mortgages, and title-deeds. All who know me,
consider me an eminently _safe_ man. The late John Jacob Astor, a
personage little given to poetic enthusiasm, had no hesitation in
pronouncing my first grand point to be prudence; my next, method. I do
not speak it in vanity, but simply record the fact, that I was not
unemployed in my profession by the late John Jacob Astor; a name which,
I admit, I love to repeat; for it hath a rounded and orbicular sound to
it, and rings like unto bullion. I will freely add, that I was not
insensible to the late John Jacob Astor's good opinion.

Some time prior to the period at which this little history begins, my
avocations had been largely increased. The good old office, now extinct
in the State of New York, of a Master in Chancery, had been conferred
upon me. It was not a very arduous office, but very pleasantly
remunerative. I seldom lose my temper; much more seldom indulge in
dangerous indignation at wrongs and outrages; but, I must be permitted
to be rash here, and declare, that I consider the sudden and violent
abrogation of the office of Master in Chancery, by the new Constitution,
as a ---- premature act; inasmuch as I had counted upon a life-lease of
the profits, whereas I only received those of a few short years. But
this is by the way.