He smoked on a moment, ruminating on his lost youth; then, bringing himself around to business again, he said: "How'd you happen to come to me?" "Well," said Marley, haltingly, "I'd heard a good deal of you--and I thought I'd like you, and then I've heard father speak of you." "You have?" said Powell, looking up quickly. "Yes." "What'd he say?" "Well, he said you were a great orator and he said you were always with the under dog. He said he liked that." Powell turned his eyes away and his face reddened. "Well, let's see. If you think your father would approve of your sitting at the feet of such a Gamaliel as I, we can--" He was squinting painfully at his book-shelves. "Is that Blackstone over there on the top shelf?" Marley got up and glanced along the backs of the dingy books, their calfskin bindings deeply browned by the years, their red and black labels peeling off. "Here's Blackstone," he said, taking down a book, "but it's the second volume." "Second volume, eh? Don't see the first around anywhere, do you?" Marley looked, without finding it. "Then see if Walker's there." Marley looked again. "Walker's _American Law_," Powell explained. "I don't see it," Marley said. "No, I reckon not," assented Powell, "some one's borrowed it. I seem to run a sort of circulating library of legal works in this town, without fines--though we have statutes against petit larceny. Well, hand me Swan's _Treatise_. That's it, on the end of the second shelf." Marley took down the book, and gave it to Powell. While Marley dusted his begrimed fingers with his handkerchief, Powell blew the dust off the top of the book; he slapped it on the arm of his chair, the dust flying from it at every stroke. He picked up his spectacles, put them on and turned over the first few leaves of the book. "You might begin on that," he said presently, "until we can borrow a Blackstone or a Walker for you. This book is the best law-book ever written anyway; the law's all there. If you knew all that contains, you could go in any court and get along without giving yourself away; which is the whole duty of a lawyer." He closed the book and gave it to Marley, who was somewhat at a loss; this was the final disappointment. He had thought that his introduction into the mysteries of the noble profession should be attended by some sort of ceremony. He looked at the book in his hand quite helplessly and then looked up at Powell. "Is that--all?" he said. "Why, yes," Powell answered. "Isn't that enough?" "I thought--that is, that I might have some duties. How am I to begin?" "Why, just open the book to the first page and read that, then turn over to the second page and read that, and so on--till you get to the end." "What will my hours be?" "Your hours?" said Powell, as if he did not understand. "Oh, just suit yourself." Marley was looking at the book again.