though I belong to a profession proverbially energetic and nervous, even
to turbulence, at times, yet nothing of that sort have I ever suffered
to invade my peace. I am one of those unambitious lawyers who never
addresses a jury, or in any way draws down public applause; but in the
cool tranquility of a snug retreat, do a snug business among rich men's
bonds and mortgages and title-deeds. All who know me, consider me an
eminently _safe_ man. The late John Jacob Astor, a personage little
given to poetic enthusiasm, had no hesitation in pronouncing my first
grand point to be prudence; my next, method. I do not speak it in
vanity, but simply record the fact, that I was not unemployed in my
profession by the late John Jacob Astor; a name which, I admit, I love
to repeat, for it hath a rounded and orbicular sound to it, and rings
like unto bullion. I will freely add, that I was not insensible to the
late John Jacob Astor's good opinion.

Some time prior to the period at which this little history begins, my
avocations had been largely increased. The good old office, now extinct
in the State of New York, of a Master in Chancery, had been conferred
upon me. It was not a very arduous office, but very pleasantly
remunerative. I seldom lose my temper; much more seldom indulge in
dangerous indignation at wrongs and outrages; but I must be permitted to
be rash here and declare, that I consider the sudden and violent
abrogation of the office of Master in Chancery, by the new Constitution,
as a--premature act; inasmuch as I had counted upon a life-lease of the
profits, whereas I only received those of a few short years. But this
is by the way.

My chambers were up stairs at No.--Wall-street. At one end they looked
upon the white wall of the interior of a spacious sky-light shaft,
penetrating the building from top to bottom. This view might have been