“Between three and four hundred, I suppose; most of them sons of our first citizens. All the law business is done by half-a-dozen vulgar upstarts who come here from the country, and whom the public, God knows why, is taking into favour. The profession of physic is a great deal better; the veriest humbug is making money by it.”
“Because dead people tell no tales, I presume?”
“Not so much for that, as because a physician often hits where he strikes at random; and because, when a physician is not doing well with his professional practice, he is always sure to make a respectable living by quackery.”
“Provided he has money enough to pay for advertising in the newspapers. But then physicians do not rank nearly as high in society as lawyers.”
“Neither should they: our profession is, par excellence, that of a gentleman.”
“And I can assure you,” interrupted the New-Yorker, “that, in this city, there is no higher rank in society than that ‘of a rich man.’ I would rather have the reputation of Mr. A*** than that of our learned chancellor K***.”
“So would I,” rejoined the lawyer. “Mr. A*** must now be ‘pretty considerably’ richer than Stephen Gerard ever was; and when a man is once rich, you know, he can do everything.”
“I believe myself,” said the New-Yorker, “that we are a ‘leetle’ too much given to money-making.”
“And that every person connected with trade is too easily admitted into our first society,” added the Philadelphian.
“In what other country,” exclaimed the Virginian, “would you see a parcel of drummers or clerks admitted into the company of statesmen and legislators?”