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My early duties were the copying and serving of papers, but the time soon came when, young though I was, I was sent to the District Court to answer the calendar and, occasionally, fight for an adjournment. Stenographers and typewriters being practically unknown, the lawyer would dictate and his clerks transcribe in longhand, make the required number of copies with pen and ink and then compare the results and correct any errors. It was only when more than twenty copies were required that printing would be resorted to.

Such was my existence from June 21st until September 16, 1870. All the while, I tried to further my education. I had joined the Mercantile Library in the previous February. Within a short time, I was attending the Cooper Institute classes in elocution and debating, and later secured instruction in grammar and composition at the Evening High School in Thirteenth Street. I tried to do as much good reading as I could, and I find that my list for 1871 ranges from Cooper’s “Spy,” “David Copperfield,” and “The Vicar of Wakefield” to Hume’s “History of England,” Mill’s “Logic,” and “The Iliad.”