uncalculating generosity, an air of such general kindliness,
that very young men felt at once at ease in his company; and if there
were sundry things in his manner that indicated coarseness or bad
breeding, if his address was vulgar and his style "snobbish," there were
sufficient traits of originality about him to form a set-off for these
defects, and "Old Grog" was pronounced an "out-and-out good fellow," and
always ready "to help one at a pinch."

Such was he to the very young men just passing the threshold of life; to
the older hands--fellows versed in all its acts and ways--he showed
no false colors; such, then, he was, the character which no disguise
conceals,--"the leg;" one whose solvency may be counted on more safely
than his honesty, and whose dealings, however based on roguery, are
still guided by that amount of honor which is requisite for transactions
amongst thieves. There was an impression, too,--we have no warranty for
saying how far it was well founded,--that Grog was behind the scenes in
transactions where many high and titled characters figured; that he was
confederate in affairs of more than doubtful integrity; and that, if
he liked, he could make revelations such as all the dark days at
Tattersall's never equalled. "They 'll never push _me_ to the wall,"
he would say, "take my word for it; they 'll not make Grog Davis turn
Queen's evidence," was the boastful exclamation of his after-dinner
hours: and he was right. He could have told of strange doings with
arsenic in the stable, and, stranger still, with hocussed negus in the
back parlor; he had seen the certain favorite for the Oaks carted out
stiff and cold on the morning that was to have witnessed her triumph;
and he had opened the door for the ruined heir as he left his last
thousand on the green baize of the hell table. He was so accustomed to
all the vicissitudes of fortune--that is, he was so habituated to aid
the goddess in the work of destiny--that nothing surprised him; and
his red, carbuncled face and jaundiced eye never betrayed the slightest
evidence of anything like emotion or astonishment

How could Beecher have felt any other than veneration for one so gifted?
He approached him as might some youthful artist the threshold of Michael
Angelo; he felt, when with him, that he was in the presence of one whose
maxims were silver and whose precepts were gold, and that to the man who
could carry away those experiences the secrets of life were n