I must pause, both upon the character and appearance of that person; for he was not an ordinary one. Richard Roberts was diminutive in person, though exceedingly well formed; most of his features were plain; and he was a good deal marked with the small-pox; but his eyes were fine, large, and expressive; and his brow was both broad and high. He had been educated as an attorney by his father, who was an attorney also; but the father and the son were different. The father was a keen, shrewd, money-making man, who had no scruples within the law. He had married the daughter of a country banker, and treated her very harshly from the hour the bank broke. He had been very civil before. She bore all patiently; for she had a very high sense of duty, which she transmitted to her son; but she died early; for she was too gentle and affectionate to endure unkindness long. The young man submitted to his father's pleasure, though the desk and the red tape were an abomination to him; and he went on studying deeply till he was out of his clerkship, when he entered into partnership with his father. The father, who was a thick-necked man, ate too much, and drank too much, at a hot corporation-dinner; and a thin alderman--for there are such things--remarked, that Roberts had eaten and drank enough that night to serve him his whole life. So it did, too; for, just as he was peeling his third orange after dinner, and somebody was getting up to make a speech, which nobody was likely to attend to, Mr. Roberts leaned amicably upon his next neighbour's breast; and that gentleman at first imagined--notwithstanding the improbability of the thing--that Roberts was drunk. When he was set up in his chair again, he moved not, except to fall slowly to the other side; and then it began to strike people, that a man might be dead instead of drunk, even at a corporation-dinner. So it proved; and the firm was changed from "Roberts and Son," to "Richard Roberts." To the surprise of everybody, however, the whole business of Mr. Roberts's office was wound up within three months, and the office closed. Every one knew, that the old man had been of a money-making turn; but still, they argued, that he could not have left enough for young Roberts to turn gentleman upon. This was true; and shortly after he accepted the situation of steward and law-agent to Sir Harry Winslow, rejecting all fees, and doing the whole business for a moderate fixed salary, which, with what his father had left him, was sufficient for his ambition. Thus he had gone on for five-and-twenty years. The tenants were always well pleased with him; for he forced no man to take a lease, when an agreement for one would do as well; but never refused a lease when it was required. Sir Harry was not always well pleased; for there was a rigidity about Mr. Roberts, and about his notions, which did not quite suit him; but Mr. Roberts, like an indispensable minister, was always ready to resign.