He also took every opportunity that came in his way of eating the detested food.

But the more he tried to like it the nastier it grew, and he gave up as impracticable his hope of going to sea.

He fastened upon adventures of real travelers; he yearned for travel, and was entranced in his youth by first sight of the beauties of the Hudson River.

He scribbled jests for his school friends, and, of course, he wrote a school-boy play.

At sixteen his schooling was at an end, and he was placed in a lawyer's office, from which he was transferred to another, and then, in January, 1802, to another, where he continued his clerkship with a Mr.Hoffman, who had a young wife, and two young daughters by a former marriage.