revolted at its wrongs and so chastised him for excess that he was
deterred from self-gratification in that direction.

Some men's bodies are a "means of grace" to them. Coarse dissipation
is a physical impossibility, or swift suicide in a very painful form.
Young Gregory found that only in the excitements of the mind could he
hope to find continued enjoyment. His ambition to accumulate wealth
and become a brilliant business man most accorded with his tastes and
training, and on these objects he gradually concentrated all his
energies, seeking only in club-rooms and places of fashionable resort
recreation from the strain of business.

He recognized that the best way to advance his own interests was to
serve his employers well; and this he did so effectually that at last
he was made a partner in the business, and, with a sense of something
more like pleasure than he had known for a long time, returned to New
York and entered upon his new duties.

As we have said, among those who warmly greeted and congratulated him,
was Mr. Hunting. They gradually came to spend much time together, and
business and money-getting were their favorite themes. Gregory saw
that his friend was as keen on the track of fortune as himself, and
that he had apparently been much more successful. Mr. Hunting
intimated that after one reached the charmed inner circle Wall Street
was a perfect Eldorado, and seemed to take pains to drop occasional
suggestions as to how an investment shrewdly made by one with his
favored point of observation often secured in a day a larger return
than a year of plodding business.

These remarks were not lost on Gregory, and the wish became very