not collecting, or
tediously going over the stock in the dim recesses of the store, I was
running errands in the wholesale district, treading the burning brick of
the pavements, dodging heavy trucks and drays and perspiring clerks who
flew about with memorandum pads in their hands, or awaiting the pleasure
of bank tellers. Save Harvey, the venerable porter, I was the last to
leave the store in the evening, and I always came away with the taste on
my palate of Breck and Company's mail, it being my final duty to "lick"
the whole of it and deposit it in the box at the corner. The gum on the
envelopes tasted of winter-green.

My Cousin Robert was somewhat astonished at my application.

"We'll make a man of you yet, Hugh," he said to me once, when I had
performed a commission with unexpected despatch....

Business was his all-in-all, and he had an undisguised contempt for
higher education. To send a boy to college was, in his opinion, to run
no inconsiderable risk of ruining him. What did they amount to when they
came home, strutting like peacocks, full of fads and fancies, and much
too good to associate with decent, hard-working citizens? Nevertheless
when autumn came and my friends departed with eclat for the East, I was
desperate indeed! Even the contemplation of Robert Breck did not console
me, and yet here, in truth, was a life which might have served me as a
model. His store was his castle; and his reputation for integrity and
square dealing as wide as the city. Often I used to watch him with a
certain envy as he stood in the doorway, his hands in his pockets,
and greeted fellow-merchant and banker with his genuine and dignified
directness. This man was his own master. They all called him "Robert,"
and they made it clear by their manner that they knew they were
addressing one who fulfilled his obligations and asked no favours.

Crusty old Nathaniel Durrett once declared that when you bought a bill
of goods from Robert Breck you did not have to check up the invoice or
employ a chemist. Here was a character to mould upon. If my ambition
could but have been bounded by Breck and Company, I, too, might have
come to stand in that doorway content with a tribute that was greater
than Caesar's.

I had been dreading the Christmas holidays, which were indeed to be no
holidays for me. And when at length they arrived they brought with them
from the East certain heroes fashionably clad, citizens now of a larger
world than mine