Having wasted his substance, he found refuge in the office of an emigration agent, where, by slow degrees, he proved himself worth a couple of hundred pounds per annum.

This was the 'business' to which Hugh Carnaby vaguely referred when people questioned him concerning his friend's history.
Had he possessed the commercial spirit, Harvey might have made his position in this office much more lucrative.

Entering nominally as a clerk, he undertook from the first a variety of duties which could only be discharged by a man of special abilities; for instance, the literary revision of seductive pamphlets and broadsheets issued by his employer to the public contemplating emigration.

These advertisements he presently composed, and, from the point of view of effectiveness, did it remarkably well.

How far such work might be worthy of an honest man, was another question, which for several years scarcely troubled his conscience.