So Nicholas's first fight for his manhood was fought and won. He went
back to his books--went back because his intellect ordained it, and the
ordinance of intellect is fate--but bitterness had gone out of him, and
he had come into his own. From the stress of the last year he had found
security in acceptance. His life might not be such as he had planned
it--whose was?--his work might not be the thing he wanted--again, whose
was?--but life and work were with him, and it remained for him to make
the best of them. Fate might make him a shopkeeper; he would see to it
that it made him a successful one. Success read backwards spelt work,
and work was his inheritance--a heritage of sweat and labour.

He went to Jerry Pollard's an hour earlier that he might rearrange to
advantage the shelves. His employer had secured, below cost, a supply of
dry goods, and preparations were in the making for the first summer sale
in Kingsborough. Nicholas conducted the arrangements as conscientiously
as he might have conducted a legal argument. It was the thing before
him, and it must not fail.

But at night he found his greater hour. When supper was over and he had
helped his father with the odd jobs of the farm, he would take the smoky
kerosene lamp to his room and plunge into the pages of "The Federalist."
From his sharp, retentive memory nothing passed. He held his knowledge
with the same vital grip with which he held his friends.

He had the judge's library now and the judge's assistance. Evening after
evening he sat in the dim, ghost-hallowed room, the shining calf-bound
volumes girdling the walls, and absorbed the judge as the judge, in his
own time, had absorbed the men who were gone. From that rich storehouse
of high principles and simple deeds Nicholas's future was drawing
nourishment. Judge Bassett had lived his life in a village, but he had
lived it among statesmen. His book-shelves were green with their
inspiration, his memory fresh from their impress. In his youth he
himself had been one of the hopes of his State; in his age he was one of
her consolations.

He treated the younger man with that quaint courtliness which knew not
affectation. When he talked to him, as he often did, of the great legal
minds, it was always with the courtesy of their titles. He spoke of "Mr.
Chancellor Kent," of "Mr. Justice Blackstone," as he spoke of "President
Davis" or of "General Lee." To have alluded to them more familiarly he
would have held