So Clayton and Russel had been friends from boyhood; had roomed together their four years in college; and, though instruments of a vastly different quality, had hitherto played the concerts of life with scarce a discord.
In person, Russel was of about the medium size, with a well-knit, elastic frame, all whose movements were characterized by sprightliness and energy. He had a frank, open countenance, clear blue eyes, a high forehead shaded by clusters of curling brown hair; his flexible lips wore a good-natured yet half-sarcastic smile. His feelings, though not inconveniently deep, were easily touched; he could be moved to tears or to smiles, with the varying humor of a friend; but never so far as to lose his equipoise—or, as he phrased it, forget what he was about.
But we linger too long in description. We had better let the reader hear the dramatis personæ, and judge for himself.
"Well, now, Clayton," said Russel, as he leaned back in a stuffed leather chair, with a cigar between his fingers, "how considerate of them to go off on that marooning party, and leave us to ourselves, here! I say, old boy, how goes the world now?—Reading law, hey?—booked to be Judge Clayton the second! Now, my dear fellow, if I had the opportunities that you have—only to step into my father's shoes—I should be a lucky fellow."
"Well, you are welcome to all my chances," said Clayton, throwing himself on one of the lounges; "for I begin to see that I shall make very little of them."
"Why, what's the matter?—Don't you like the study?"
"The study, perhaps, well enough—but not the practice. Reading the theory is always magnificent and grand. 'Law hath her seat in the bosom of God; her voice is the harmony of the world.' You remember we used to declaim that. But, then, come to the practice of it, and what do you find? Are legal examinations anything like searching after truth? Does not an advocate commit himself to one-sided views of his subject, and habitually ignore all the truth on the other side? Why, if I practised law according to my conscience, I should be chased out of court in a week."
"There you are, again, Clayton, with your everlasting conscience, which has been my plague ever since you were a boy, and I have never been able to convince you what a humbug it is! It's what I call a crotchety conscience—always in the way of your doing anything like anybody else. I suppose, then, of course, you won't go into political life.—Great pity, too. You'd make a very imposing figure as senator. You have exactly the cut for a conscript father—one of the old Viri Romæ."
"And what do you think the old Viri Romæ would do in Washington? What sort of a figure do you think Regulus, or Quintus Curtius, or Mucius Scævola, would make there?"