He worked hard on the paper--and almost equally hard, by spells, at home evenings. He did drop in at Bismarck’s or some like place, for a few moments now and then, but he was careful to avoid games, or any further intimacy with habitués. Had it not been for Ansdell and Dent, this part of his new regimen would have been well nigh impossible, for the gregarious instinct was strong in him--as it is in any young man worth his salt--and associations of some sort were as necessary as food to him. He had discovered, long before this, that Dent was an old acquaintance of Ansdell’s, and that he, in fact, had told the latter about Seth and his profitless courses, and interested the lawyer in his case. He had learned, too, that this pale “Young Man Christian” as Watts had called him derisively, had from the first been well-disposed toward him, and, when the emergency of Tyler’s absence came up, had waived alike his own claims to preferment and his justifiable personal pique, and thrust Seth forward into the place because he felt that he needed some such incentive to make a man of himself. This was very high conduct, and Seth tried hard to like Dent a great deal in return. He never quite succeeded. They were too dissimilar in temperament to ever become close friends. Seth explained it to himself by saying that Dent was too cold and non-emotional. But Dent himself never seemed conscious of anything lacking in their relations, and they were certainly cordial and companionable enough when they met, generally two evenings a week, at Mr. Ansdell’s chambers. Nothing less like the bachelor’s den dear to tradition can be imagined. There were no pipes, for the lawyer smoked cigars and nothing else; there was no litter of papers, opened books, pamphlets, scraps and the like, for he was the soul of order; no tumbled clothes, odd boots, overflowing trunks, etc., for he was the pink of neatness. He used to like to describe himself in the words with which Evelyn paints his father, as “of a thriving, neat, silent, methodical genius,” but it was always with a twinkling eye, for surely no man was ever less silent. He was a born talker--nervous, eager, fluent, with a delicate sense of the sound and shading of words, a keen appreciation of all picturesque and salient points, a rare delight in real humor, and, above all, with tremendous capabilities of earnestness. Conceive such a man, if you can--for there will never be another like him--and then endow him in your mind with a marvelous accumulation of knowledge, with convictions upon every conceivable subject, and with nothing short of a passion for enforcing these upon those of whom he was fond--and some idea of the perfect ascendancy he gained over Seth will have been obtained.