Certainly, of all students, Judge Bradley had never had a handsomer, a more mature, or a more reluctant candidate than this same Edward Franklin, late captain in the United States Army, now getting well on into his twenties, grave, silent, and preoccupied, perhaps a trine dreamy.

He might or might not be good material for a lawyer; as to that, Judge Bradley did not concern himself.

Young men came into his office upon their own responsibility.
It was one of the unvarying rules of Judge Bradley's office, and indeed this was almost the only rule which he imposed, that the law student within his gates, no matter what his age or earlier servitude, should each morning sweep out the office, and should, when so requested, copy out any law papers needing to be executed in duplicate.

So long as a student did these things, he was welcome as long as he cared to stay.
The judge never troubled himself about the studies of his pupil, never asked him a question, indeed never even told him what books it might be best to read, unless this advice were asked voluntarily by the student himself.

He simply gave the candidate a broom, a chair, and the freedom of the library, which latter was the best law library in the town.