"I see that you are a man of _esprit!_" he remarked between spasms. "I shall be glad to take you into my office. You may go and introduce yourself to Mr. Spruggins, the chief clerk." Thus it was that I secured my first slender foothold at the bar of New York, and it was not for several years that I discovered that the Toddleham who had written the book on Perpetuities was an entirely different person, belonging to another branch of the family. Of course I received no compensation for my services at Haight & Foster's, but that was the customary rule with all students. As a result we were not strictly tied down in our attendance at the office. I really believe it would have been cheaper for the firm to have paid a small salary to their clerks, for it would then have been in a position to demand much more of them in return. As it was I found myself able to come and go about as I chose, and being obliged to support myself in some way my attendance at the office was quite irregular. But I was started at last and belonged somewhere. No longer was it necessary for me to wander about the streets looking for a place to hang my hat, and I already had schemes in mind whereby I was soon to become rich. My associates in the office were all scholarly, respectable young men, most of them law-school graduates and scions of well-known families, and I was not insensible to the advantage to me that my connection with them might be later on. It was essential that I should impress them and the firm with my seriousness of purpose, and so I made it a point, unpleasant as I found it, to be on hand at the office every morning promptly at eight-thirty o'clock, ready to arrange papers or serve them, and to be of any assistance, no matter how menial, to Mr. Spruggins, whose sense of dignity I took pains to flatter in every way possible. In the afternoon, however, I slipped away on the pretext of having to go uptown to study, but in point of fact in order to earn enough money to pay for my board and lodging. I had been cogitating several ideas since I had visited Gottlieb, and the one that appealed to me the most was that of procuring of business for other lawyers upon a percentage basis. I reasoned that there must be several hundred thousand people in the city who had no acquaintance with lawyers and would be as ready to consult one as another. Reputable lawyers did not advertise, to be sure, but I was not yet a lawyer, and hence many courses were open to me at this stage in my career that would be closed later on. I had considerable confidence in my own persuasive ability and felt that it was only a question of time before I could drum up a substantial amount of business. Accordingly I had a few cards neatly printed on glossed board reading: MR. ARTEMAS QUIBBLE BROADWAY OF HAIGHT & FOSTER Contracts ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW Mortgages 10 WALL STREET Tax Matters NEW YORK CITY General Advice