eet
him again, he had even begun to lose faith altogether in his earthly
destiny. It became much of a question with him whether success in any
form was written there; whether for a hungry young Mississippian,
without means, without friends, wanting, too, in the highest energy, the
wisdom of the serpent, personal arts and national prestige, the game of
life was to be won in New York. He had been on the point of giving it up
and returning to the home of his ancestors, where, as he heard from his
mother, there was still just a sufficient supply of hot corn-cake to
support existence. He had never believed much in his luck, but during
the last year it had been guilty of aberrations surprising even to a
constant, an imperturbable, victim of fate. Not only had he not extended
his connexion, but he had lost most of the little business which was an
object of complacency to him a twelvemonth before. He had had none but
small jobs, and he had made a mess of more than one of them. Such
accidents had not had a happy effect upon his reputation; he had been
able to perceive that this fair flower may be nipped when it is so
tender a bud as scarcely to be palpable. He had formed a partnership
with a person who seemed likely to repair some of his deficiencies--a
young man from Rhode Island, acquainted, according to his own
expression, with the inside track. But this gentleman himself, as it
turned out, would have been better for a good deal of remodelling, and
Ransom's principal deficiency, which was, after all, that of cash, was
not less apparent to him after his colleague, prior to a sudden and
unexplained departure for Europe, had drawn the slender accumulations of
the firm out of the bank. Ransom sat for hours in his office, waiting
for clients who either did not come, or, if they did come, did not seem
to find him encouraging, as they usually left him with the remark that
they would think what they would do. They thought to little purpose, and
seldom reappeared, so that at last he began to wonder whether there were
not a prejudice against his Southern complexion. Perhaps they didn't
like the way he spoke. If they could show him a better way, he was
willing to adopt it; but the manner of New York could not be acquired by
precept, and example, somehow, was not in this case contagious. He
wondered whether he were stupid and unskilled, and he was finally
obliged to confess to himself that he was unpractical.

This confession was in itse