At the banker's,
when I went to provide for the regular receipt of my remittances, I met
a young American, by name Paton Jeffries. He was from New England, and,
I think, a native of the State of Connecticut; his father, he told me,
was a distinguished inventor, who had made and lost a considerable
fortune in devising a means of promoting sleep by electricity. Paton
was studying to be an architect, which, he said, was the coming
profession in his country; and it was evident, on a short acquaintance,
that he was a fellow of unusual talents--one of those men of whom you
say that, come what may, they are always sure to fall on their feet.
For my part, I have certainly never met with so active and versatile a
spirit. He was a year or so older than I, rather tall than short,
lightly but strongly built, with a keen, smiling, subtle face, a
finely-developed forehead, light wavy hair, and gray eyes, very
penetrating and bright. There was a pleasing kind of eagerness and
volubility in his manner of talking, and a slight imperfection, not
amounting to a lisp, in his utterance, which imparted a naive charm to
his speech.
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