Jonas Mallet, at the time of his marriage, was conducting with silent
shrewdness a small, unpromising business. Both his shrewdness and his
silence increased with his years, and at the close of his life he was an
extremely well-dressed, well-brushed gentleman, with a frigid gray eye,
who said little to anybody, but of whom everybody said that he had
a very handsome fortune. He was not a sentimental father, and the
roughness I just now spoke of in Rowland's life dated from his early
boyhood. Mr. Mallet, whenever he looked at his son, felt extreme
compunction at having made a fortune. He remembered that the fruit had
not dropped ripe from the tree into his own mouth, and determined it
should be no fault of his if the boy was corrupted by luxury. Rowland,
therefore, except for a good deal of expensive instruction in foreign
tongues and abstruse sciences, received the education of a poor man's
son. His fare was plain, his temper familiar with the discipline of
patched trousers, and his habits marked by an exaggerated simplicity
which it really cost a good deal of money to preserve unbroken.
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