Anderson was cast on unusually simple and ingenuous lines.
Nobody would have believed it, but he was actually somewhat modest and shy before his own clerks, and realized sensitively his own lack of experience.

So he had a way of subsiding when customers appeared, and retreating to his office in the rear of the building.

He spent most of his time in this office.

It was a very pleasant one, overlooking the river, on which steamboats and canal-boats travelled to the city.

From Anderson's office the bank of red clay soil sloped to the water's edge.