I soon made up my mind that in New York brains were a pretty cheap commodity. I was anxious to get ahead; but there was no opening in the firm and there were others ready to take my place the moment it should become vacant. I was a pretty fair lawyer and had laid by in the bank nearly a thousand dollars; so I went to the head of the firm and made the proposition that I should work at the office each day until one o'clock and be paid half of what I was then getting--that is, fifty dollars a month. In the afternoons an understudy should sit at my desk, while I should be free. I then suggested that the firm might divide with me the proceeds of any business I should bring in. My offer was accepted; and the same afternoon I went to the office of a young stockbroker I knew and stayed there until three o'clock. The next day I did the same thing, and the day after. I did not buy any stocks, but I made myself agreeable to the group about the ticker and formed the acquaintance of an elderly German, who was in the chewing-gum business and who amused himself playing the market. It was not long before he invited me to lunch with him and I took every opportunity to impress him with my legal acumen. He had a lawyer of his own already, but I soon saw that the impression I was making would have the effect I desired; and presently, as I had confidently expected, he gave me a small legal matter to attend to. Needless to say it was accomplished with care, celerity and success. He gave me another. For six months I dogged that old German's steps every day from one o'clock in the afternoon until twelve at night. I walked, talked, drank beer and played pinochle with him, sat in his library in the evenings, and took him and his wife to the theater. At the end of that period he discharged his former attorney and retained me. The business was easily worth thirty-five hundred dollars a year, and within a short time the Chicle Trust bought out his interests and I became a director in it and one of its attorneys. I had already severed my connection with the firm and had opened an office of my own. Among the directors in the trust with whom I was thrown were a couple of rich young men whose fathers had put them on the board merely for purposes of representation. These I cultivated with the same assiduity as I had used with the German. I spent my entire time gunning for big game. I went after the elephants and let the sparrows go. It was only a month or so before my acquaintance with these two boys--for they were little else--had ripened into friendship. My wife and I were invited to visit at their houses and I was placed in contact with their fathers. From these I soon began to get business. I have kept it--kept it to myself. I have no real partners to steal it away from me.