A first interview with the Hon. J. W. Cabot, senior member of the
firm of Cabot, Hollingsworth & Perry, generally resulted in a belief
that this distinguished lawyer was a severe, unsympathetic man whose
dignity, under ordinary pressure, was not likely to abate. An abundant
crop of short gray hair covered a square, well-shaped head; a head that
seemed hard and strong. His forehead, his jaw, and his shoulders were
also square, and they also seemed hard and strong.
His manner was cold, his voice firm and even, and he was never ruffled.
The cool gray eyes rested calmly upon you as if screening, out of
consideration for your own fallacious knowledge, the profundity of
wisdom that reposed behind them. His memory seemed infallible. The
extent and accuracy of his legal knowledge was a perpetual surprise,
even to his partners. For simplifying complex entanglements his
clearness and rapidity amounted to a genius. His fees were colossal. In
short, he seemed just the man who would never write such a note as this: