the store and whittlin' timber with your little
jack-knife. I was only eleven years with your father, sir--eleven years
and six months--went to him when I was fourteen years old. That's
fifty-six years and six months in the service of two of the best houses
that ever was in New York--an' I can do my work with any two young
shavers in the town--ain't missed a day in nineteen years now. Your
father hadn't never ought to have gone out of business, Mr. Dolph. He
did a great business for those days, and he had the makin' of a big
house. Goin' to bring your boy up like a good New York merchant, hey?
Come along here with me, young man, and I'll see if you're half the man
your grandfather was. He hadn't never ought to have given up business,
Mr. Dolph. But he was all for pleasuring an' the play-houses, an' havin'
fine times. Come along, young man. What's your name?"

"Eustace Dolph."

"Hm! Jacob's better."

And he led the neophyte away.

"Curious old case," said Mr. Van Riper, dryly. "Best accountant in New
York. See that high stool of his?--can't get him off it. Five years ago
I gave him a low desk and an arm-chair. In one week he was back again,
roosting up there. Said he didn't feel comfortable with his feet on the
ground. He thought that sort of thing might do for aged people, but _he_
wasn't made of cotton-batting."

Thus began Eustace Dolph's apprenticeship to business, and mightily ill
he liked it.

* * * * *

There came a day, a winter day in 1854, when there was great agitation
among what were then called the real old families of New York. I cannot
use the term "fashionable society," because that is more comprehensive,
and would include many wealthy and ambitious families from New England,
who were decidedly not of the Dolphs' set. And then, the Dolphs could
hardly be reckoned among the leaders of fashion. To live on or near the
boundaries of fashion's domain is to lower your social status below the
absolute pitch of perfection, and fashion in 1854 drew the line pretty
sharply at Bleecker Street. Above Bleecker Street the cream of the cream
rose to the surface; below, you were ranked as skim milk. The social
world was spreading up into the wastes sacred to the circus and the
market-garden, although, if Admiral Farragut had stood on his sea-legs
where he stands now, he might have had a fairly clear view of Chelsea
Village, and seen Alonzo Cushman II., or Alonzo Cushman III., perhap