In order to succeed a young lawyer must be ceaselessly vigilant. It is not enough to perform faithfully what he is told. There are many who will do this. The man who gets ahead is he who does more than the letter of his employment demands, who anticipates instructions and disregards time and comfort in order to follow a clue of evidence or elucidate a principle. So he becomes indispensable, and by and by the opportunity presents itself which the shiftless ascribe to luck. Gordon Perry revealed this faculty of indefatigable initiative. The firm in whose office he was a student had a large business, chiefly in the line of commercial law. The transit of the various commodities to which Benham owed her prosperity was necessarily productive of considerable litigation against the railroads as common carriers and between the shippers and consignees of wares and merchandise. Besides, there were constant suits for personal injuries to be prosecuted or defended, involving nice distinctions as to what is negligence, and bringing in their train much practice for the juniors in the investigation of testimony. From the outset Gordon worked with unsparing enthusiasm, seeking to do the work entrusted to him so thoroughly that those who tried the cases would find the situation clearly defined and everything at their fingers' ends. When it was perceived that he was not only diligent but discerning and accurate, they began to rely on him, and by the end of three years the responsibility of trying as well as of preparing the less important proceedings in the lower courts became his. Also, by showing himself solicitous regarding the affairs of the clients of the office, he was able now and again to supply information or tide matters over when the member of the firm inquired for was out; and it was not long before some of them formed the habit of consulting him directly in minor matters. When at the end of five years the senior partner, who had independent means, retired in order to go to Congress, his two associates came to the conclusion that it would be good policy, as well as just, to give Perry, as the most promising young man in the office, a small interest in the business. This promotion naturally gave him a new status with the clients, and most of those who had been in the habit of consulting him offhand, now laid their serious troubles before him. So by the time he was twenty-nine he was well started in his profession, and able to extract a promise from his mother that if he continued to prosper for another year, she would yield to his solicitations to give up her boarders and move into a brighter neighborhood.