they were the salt of the earth or that they were following a really noble profession or that they were above or better than other men in their abilities.  Well, if being conniving and tricky are fine traits, I suppose they are, but personally I can’t see it.  Generally speaking, they’re physically the poorest fish I get here.  They’re slow and meditative and sallow, mostly because they get too little exercise, I presume.  And they’re never direct and enthusiastic in an argument.  A lawyer always wants to stick in an ‘if’ or a ‘but,’ to get around you in some way.  He’s never willing to answer you quickly or directly.  I’ve watched ’em now for nearly fifteen years, and they’re all more or less alike.  They think they’re very individual and different, but they’re not.  Most of them don’t know nearly as much about life as a good, all-around business or society man,” this in the absence of any desire to discuss these two breeds for the time being.  “For the life of me I could never see why a really attractive woman would ever want to marry a lawyer”—­and so he would talk on, revealing one little unsatisfactory trait after another in connection with the tribe, sand-papering their raw places as it were, until you would about conclude, supposing you had never heard him talk concerning any other profession, that lawyers were the most ignoble, the pettiest, the most inefficient physically and mentally, of all the men he had ever encountered; and in his noble savage state there would not be one to disagree with him, for he had such an animal, tiger-like mien that you had the feeling that instead of an argument you would get a physical rip which would leave you bleeding for days.

The next day, or a day or two or four or six later—­according to his mood—­it would be doctors or merchants or society men or politicians he would discourse about—­and, kind heaven, what a drubbing they would get!  He seemed always to be meditating on the vulnerable points of his victims, anxious (and yet presumably not) to show them what poor, fallible, shabby, petty and all but drooling creatures they were.  Thus in regard to merchants: 

“The average man who has a little business of some kind, a factory or a wholesale or brokerage house or a hotel or a restaurant, usually has a distinctly middle-class mind.”  At this all the merchants and manufacturers were likely to give a very sharp ear.  “As a rule, you’ll find that they know just the one little line with which they’re connected, and nothing more.  One man knows all about cloaks and suits” (this may have been a slap at poor Itzky) “or he knows a little something about leather goods or shoes or lamps or furniture, and that’s all he knows.  If he’s an American he’ll buckle down to that little business and work night and day, sweat blood and make every one else connected with him sweat it, underpay his employees, swindle his friends, half-starve himself and his family, in order to get a few thousand dollars and seem as good as some one else who has a