For all of these operations a corps of counsel had been employed, including the firm of Harrington and Bowes next to Theodore Watling, Joel Harrington was deemed the ablest lawyer in the city.  We organized in due time the corporation known as the Boyne Iron Works, Limited; a trust agreement was drawn up that was a masterpiece of its kind, one that caused, first and last, meddling officials in the Department of Justice at Washington no little trouble and perplexity.  I was proud of the fact that I had taken no small part in its composition....  In short, in addition to certain emoluments and opportunities for investment, I emerged from the affair firmly established in the good graces of Adolf Scherer, and with a reputation practically made.

A year or so after the Boyne Company, Ltd., came into existence I chanced one morning to go down to the new Ashuela Hotel to meet a New Yorker of some prominence, and was awaiting him in the lobby, when I overheard a conversation between two commercial travellers who were sitting with their backs to me.

“Did you notice that fellow who went up to the desk a moment ago?” asked one.

“The young fellow in the grey suit?  Sure.  Who is he?  He looks as if he was pretty well fixed.”

“I guess he is,” replied the first.  “That’s Paret.  He’s Scherer’s confidential counsel.  He used to be Senator Watling’s partner, but they say he’s even got something on the old man.”

In spite of the feverish life I led, I was still undoubtedly young-looking, and in this I was true to the incoming type of successful man.  Our fathers appeared staid at six and thirty.  Clothes, of course, made some difference, and my class and generation did not wear the sombre and cumbersome kind, with skirts and tails; I patronized a tailor in New York.  My chestnut hair, a little darker than my father’s had been, showed no signs of turning grey, although it was thinning a little at the crown of the forehead, and I wore a small moustache, clipped in a straight line above the mouth.  This made me look less like a college youth.  Thanks to a strong pigment in my skin, derived probably from Scotch-Irish ancestors, my colour was fresh.  I have spoken of my life as feverish, and yet I am not so sure that this word completely describes it.  It was full to overflowing—­one side of it; and I did not miss (save vaguely, in rare moments of weariness) any other side that might have been developed.  I was busy all day long, engaged in affairs I deemed to be alone of vital importance in the universe.  I was convinced that the welfare of the city demanded that supreme financial power should remain in the hands of the group of men with whom I was associated, and whose battles I fought in the courts, in the legislature, in the city council, and sometimes in Washington,—­although they were well cared for there.  By every means ingenuity could devise, their enemies were to be driven from the field, and they were to be protected from blackmail.