My father was a stock-broker, in anything but flourishing circumstances.

He went in for some cursed foreign loan or other,--I know nothing of such things,--and ruined himself completely.
He had to take a subordinate position, and died in it.

I was about seventeen then, and found myself alone in the world.

A friend of my father's, also a city man, Woodstock by name, was left my guardian.

He wanted me to begin a business career, and, like a fool, I wouldn't hear of it.