h was not made public, so that I had absolutely
nothing to stimulate my ambition. I am told that it is all very
different to-day.

The astonishment with which I learned of my success was shared by the
numerous Southern gentlemen who darkened the floors and perfumed with
tobacco the rooms of our boarding-house. In my companions, during
the time of my studies so called, as in other matters of life, I was
somewhat unfortunate. All of them were Southern gentlemen, with
more money than I had. Many of them carried great sticks, usually
sword-canes, and some bowie-knives or pistols; also, they delighted in
swallow-tailed coats, long hair, broad-brimmed felt hats, and very tight
boots. I often think of these gentlemen with affectionate interest, and
wonder how many are lying under the wheat-fields of Virginia. One could
see them any day sauntering along with their arms over their companions'
shoulders, splendidly indifferent to the ways of the people about them.
They hated the "Nawth" and cursed the Yankees, and honestly believed
that the leanest of them was a match for any half a dozen of the
bulkiest of Northerners. I must also do them the justice to say that
they were quite as ready to fight as to brag, which, by the way, is no
meager statement. With these gentry--for whom I retain a respect which
filled me with regret at the recent course of events--I spent a good
deal of my large leisure. The more studious of both sections called us
a hard crowd. What we did, or how we did it, little concerns me here,
except that, owing to my esteem for chivalric blood and breeding, I was
led into many practices and excesses which cost my guardian and myself
a good deal of money. At the close of my career as a student I found
myself aged twenty-one years, and the owner of some seven hundred
dollars--the rest of my small estate having disappeared variously within
the last two years. After my friends had gone to their homes in the
South I began to look about me for an office, and finally settled upon
very good rooms in one of the down-town localities of the Quaker City.
I am not specific as to the number and street, for reasons which may
hereafter appear. I liked the situation on various accounts. It had
been occupied by a doctor; the terms were reasonable; and it lay on the
skirts of a good neighborhood, while below it lived a motley population,
among which I expected to get my first patients and such fees as were to
be had. Into this new h