Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/123

 students of medicine and one of law, met together many years later as pall-bearers at the funeral of the famous surgeon, Dr. D. Hayes Agnew—Dr. Roland G. Curtin, Dr. De Forrest Willard and myself. Another boarder was John Thompson Spencer, then a student of law, who later married the only daughter of John William Wallace, one of my predecessors as president of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and who now entertains the European nobility when they come to Newport. With a Frenchman at the table, I began to talk French, and thereafter our conversations were conducted solely in that language.

About this time I made the acquaintance of J. Granville Leach, the son of a Baptist preacher at Cape May, who was reading law in the office of Byron Woodward. The resources of Leach, like those of the rest of us, were narrow, and he slept in the office. Leach introduced me into the Law Academy and at his suggestion I, while yet a student, in 1865, was elected its assistant secretary. I, therefore, owe to Leach my first professional recognition. Through two winters I attended the law lectures at the University of Pennsylvania by Judge George Sharswood, P. Pemberton Morris and E. Spencer Miller, paying to each of them sixty dollars for the two terms of the year. Miller had the reputation of being the least capable lawyer and the best lecturer. A nervous, combative little man, he had a practice which, it was supposed, netted him $30,000 a year and had made him rich. When he died he left nothing behind him in the way of an estate. Sharswood had one of those kindly dispositions which made everybody fond of him. With young men he was ever gentle, and late in life he afforded the pathetic spectacle of a father watching through the night for the incoming of an only son whose wildness and waywardness he ever condoned. He had no presence, no voice and a troubled utterance. He suffered much from a physical cause, and in the trial of cases paced slowly up and down behind the bench. Later he became Chief Justice of the 8