"
Meanwhile, I was busy about the office, copying letters, running
errands, carrying books to and from the court rooms, reading law in the
intervals, and at night scrubbing the floors. I was pale, thin,
big-headed, with the body of an underfed child, and an ambition that
kept me up half the night with Von Holst's "Constitutional Law,"
Walker's "American Law," or a sheepskin volume of Lawson's "Leading
Cases in Equity." I was so mad to save every penny I could earn that
instead of buying myself food for luncheon, I ate molasses and
gingerbread that all but turned my stomach; and I was so eager to learn
my law that I did not take my sleep when I could get it. The result
was that I was stupid at my tasks, moody, melancholy, and so sensitive
that my employer's natural dissatisfaction with my work put me into
agonies of shame and despair of myself. I became, as the boys say,
"dopy." I remember that one night, after I had scrubbed the floors of
our offices, I took off the old trousers in which I had been working,
hung them in a closet, and started home; and it was not until the cold
wind struck my bare knees that I realized I was on the street in my
shirt.
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