clerk for two years before I could be
admitted to the bar. Accordingly I began to make inquiries as to
what were the best law firms in the city, and before long had
acquired pretty definite information as to who were and who were
not in high standing. Now, I had no letters of introduction and
nothing to recommend me except a certain degree of maturity and a
cultivated manner of speaking, and I might and probably should have
been trying to this day to break into some sedate and high-toned
old-fogy office had it not been for one of those accidents with
which my career has been replete.

I had visited all the firms on my list without finding any who
wanted to take in a student. Indeed all the offices seemed filled
if not crowded with studious-looking young men whose noses were
buried in law books. In one or two, to be sure, I might have
secured admittance and been given desk room in exchange for the
services of my legs as a runner of errands and a server of papers,
but none had any idea of paying anything. The profession at the
bottom was more overcrowded than the gallery of the Academy of
Music when they ran Rosedale. Each night as I returned to my
lodgings I felt more and more discouraged. Its smell of cabbage
came to have for me an inexpressible sensation of relief, of
protection, even of luxury. Here, at any rate, even in an actors'
boarding-house, I was independent, as good as anybody, and not
regarded as if I were a beggar on the one hand or a questionable
character on the other.

How long this might have continued I have no means of knowing, but
one afternoon as I was trudging uptown, still holding in my hand
a copy of a legal journal, the advertisements in which I had been
engaged in sedulously running down, my attention was attracted by
a crowd gathered in the street around a young man who had been so
unfortunate as to be run over by a stage. There was nothing external
to indicate the extent of his injuries, and as I drew nearer two
persons assisted him to his feet and began to lead him toward the
nearest store. Having nothing better to do I walked along with
them, and after they had gone inside remained looking curiously
through the window. While I was thus engaged a stout, bustling
man of about forty years of age came hurrying down the sidewalk
and turned to enter the store. As he did he observed me apparently
waiting there and his eye with a quick glance took in the title of
the paper in my hand