He possessed the supreme quality of a leader of men in that he took pains to inform himself concerning the work of the least of his subordinates; and he had the gift of putting fire into a young man by a word or a touch of the hand on the shoulder.  It was not difficult for me, therefore, to comprehend Larry Weed’s hero-worship, the loyalty of other members of the firm or of those occupants of the office whom I have not mentioned.  My first impression of him, which I had got at Jerry Kyme’s, deepened as time went on, and I readily shared the belief of those around me that his legal talents easily surpassed those of any of his contemporaries.  I can recall, at this time, several noted cases in the city when I sat in court listening to his arguments with thrills of pride.  He made us all feel—­no matter how humble may have been our contributions to the preparation—­that we had a share in his triumphs.  We remembered his manner with judges and juries, and strove to emulate it.  He spoke as if there could be no question as to his being right as to the law and the facts, and yet, in some subtle way that bated analysis, managed not to antagonize the court.  Victory was in the air in that office.  I do not mean to say there were not defeats; but frequently these defeats, by resourcefulness, by a never-say-die spirit, by a consummate knowledge, not only of the law, but of other things at which I have hinted, were turned into ultimate victories.  We fought cases from one court to another, until our opponents were worn out or the decision was reversed.  We won, and that spirit of winning got into the blood.  What was most impressed on me in those early years, I think, was the discovery that there was always a path—­if one were clever enough to find it—­from one terrace to the next higher.  Staying power was the most prized of all the virtues.  One could always, by adroitness, compel a legal opponent to fight the matter out all over again on new ground, or at least on ground partially new.  If the Court of Appeals should fail one, there was the Supreme Court; there was the opportunity, also, to shift from the state to the federal courts; and likewise the much-prized device known as a change of venue, when a judge was supposed to be “prejudiced.”

IX.

As my apprenticeship advanced I grew more and more to the inhabitants of our city into two kinds, the who were served, and the inefficient, who were separate efficient, neglected; but the mental process of which the classification was the result was not so deliberate as may be supposed.  Sometimes, when an important client would get into trouble, the affair took me into the police court, where I saw the riff-raff of the city penned up, waiting to have justice doled out to them:  weary women who had spent the night in cells, indifferent now as to the front they presented to the world, the finery rued that they had tended so carefully to catch the eyes of men on the darkened