For many other reasons he was
not. He was chiefly fortunate in being, as certain opponents often
strove to witheringly designate him, "the son of his father," since
that sound old gentleman was the wealthiest farmer in that section,
with but one son and heir to, in time, supplant him in the role of
"county god," and haply perpetuate the prouder title of "the biggest
tax-payer on the assessment list." And this fact, too, fortunate as it
would seem, was doubtless the indirect occasion of a liberal
percentage of all John's misfortunes. From his earliest school-days in
the little town, up to his tardy graduation from a distant college,
the influence of his father's wealth invited his procrastination,
humored its results, encouraged the laxity of his ambition, "and even
now," as John used, in bitter irony, to put it, "it is aiding and
abetting me in the ostensible practice of my chosen profession, a
listless, aimless undetermined man of forty, and a confirmed bachelor
at that!" At the utterance of this self-depreciating statement, John
generally jerked his legs down from the top of his desk; and, rising
and kicking his chair back to the wall, he would stump around his
littered office till the manilla carpet steamed with dust.
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