office cipher, and we'll
make it a kind of partnership business, Loudon:--Dodd & Son, eh?" and
he patted my shoulder and repeated, "Dodd & Son, Dodd & Son," with the
kindliest amusement.

If my father was to give me pointers, and the commercial college was to
be a stepping-stone to Paris, I could look my future in the face. The
old boy, too, was so pleased at the idea of our association in this
foolery that he immediately plucked up spirit. Thus it befell that those
who had met at the depot like a pair of mutes, sat down to table with
holiday faces.

And now I have to introduce a new character that never said a word nor
wagged a finger, and yet shaped my whole subsequent career. You have
crossed the States, so that in all likelihood you have seen the head
of it, parcel-gilt and curiously fluted, rising among trees from a wide
plain; for this new character was no other than the State capitol of
Muskegon, then first projected. My father had embraced the idea with a
mixture of patriotism and commercial greed both perfectly genuine. He
was of all the committees, he had subscribed a great deal of money, and
he was making arrangements to have a finger in most of the contracts.
Competitive plans had been sent in; at the time of my return from
college my father was deep in their consideration; and as the idea
entirely occupied his mind, the first evening did not pass away before
he had called me into council. Here was a subject at last into which I
could throw myself with pleasurable zeal. Architecture was new to me,
indeed; but it was at least an art; and for all the arts I had a taste
naturally classical and that capacity to take delighted pains which some
famous idiot has supposed to be synonymous with genius. I threw myself
headlong into my father's work, acquainted myself with all the plans,
their merits and defects, read besides in special books, made myself
a master of the theory of strains, studied the current prices
of materials, and (in one word) "devilled" the whole business so
thoroughly, that when the plans came up for consideration, Big Head Dodd
was supposed to have earned fresh laurels. His arguments carried the
day, his choice was approved by the committee, and I had the anonymous
satisfaction to know that arguments and choice were wholly mine. In the
recasting of the plan which followed, my part was even larger; for I
designed and cast with my own hand a hot-air grating for the offices,
which had the luck or