January morning Major Colfax had a twinge of remembrance, cried out for
horses, took me into Richmond, and presented me to that very learned and
decorous gentleman, Judge Wentworth.

My studies began within the hour of my arrival.



CHAPTER V

I MEET AN OLD BEDFELLOW

I shall burden no one with the dry chronicles of a law office. The
acquirement of learning is a slow process in life, and perchance a slower
one in the telling. I lacked not application during the three years of
my stay in Richmond, and to earn my living I worked at such odd tasks as
came my way.

The Judge resembled Major Colfax in but one trait: he was choleric. But
he was painstaking and cautious, and I soon found out that he looked
askance upon any one whom his nephew might recommend. He liked the
Major, but he vowed him to be a roisterer and spendthrift, and one day,
some months after my advent, the Judge asked me flatly how I came to fall
in with Major Colfax. I told him. At the end of this conversation he
took my breath away by bidding me come to live with him. Like many
lawyers of that time, he had a little house in one corner of his grounds
for his office. It stood under great spreading trees, and there I was
wont to sit through many a summer day wrestling with the authorities.
In the evenings we would have political arguments, for the Confederacy
was in a seething state between the Federalists and the Republicans over