I joined the Columbia Club and was elected one of the team to debate with the Barnard Club, all of whose members were college graduates, while we had not had that advantage. I studied the subject of the debate, “Whether Participation in Profits or Agency Is the Correct Test of Partnership,” more thoroughly than I ever did any case on which I was retained during my practice of law. Professor Dwight, who presided, praised our thorough preparation and fine team work and declared us the winners. When our class graduated, we had the great honour of having that famous leader of the Bar, Charles O’Connor, come out of his retirement to bid us “Godspeed” on our way. I was formally admitted to the bar on June 1, 1877. During my second year in Law School I did not teach night school, but supported myself by accepting a position from that fine Southern gentleman, General Roger A. Pryor, who had been Congressman, Minister to Spain, and finally became a Judge of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. An interesting episode that occurred at that time was my representing General Pryor at several meetings of the owners of the Greenwich Street property, who had retained him to seek an injunction to prevent the continued use and extension of the first Elevated road, which was on their street and was propelled by a chain. They claimed that their property would be ruined for private residences, and it was. They did not visualize, however, that this was the first step forward in the solution of the transit problem of New York, which was then totally dependent upon its horse-car system; and that someone had to suffer for the general good. A very important and valuable after-effect of my connection with Pryor’s office was my becoming acquainted with Mr. Valentine Loewi, for whom I searched the title in a mortgage transaction. Loewi doubted my experience and when Pryor confronted me with this, instead of resenting the criticism, as Loewi expected me to do, I recognized its justice, and satisfied Loewi by having my work checked up by Mr. McIntire. He became my permanent friend and one of my firm’s first clients, and through his recommendations we secured some of the most valuable clients we ever had. A little later came the uproar consequent upon Tilton’s entering the wrong berth in a sleeping-car. He came to Pryor, and I acted as secretary while these two prepared the Tilton statement for the newspapers. Curiously, both these six-footers had the habit, when thinking intensely, of striding across the room with swinging arms, and were that day doing it in opposite directions. I was constantly on the alert for a collision. Tilton would dictate a phrase. Pryor would stop and suggest another word. Tilton would weigh and test it, and would make still further corrections. Not even my weightiest diplomatic notes from Constantinople received the care and attention that these few lines were given by these two masters of English.