st be owned,
lost much of its vacillation. The usual question about any case was,
"What does Con say? Did Con Cregan tell ye ye 'll win?" That was
decisive; none sceptical enough to ask for more!

At the feet of this Gamaliel I was brought up; nothing the more tenderly
that a stepmother presided over the "home department." As I was a stout
boy, of some thirteen or fourteen at this period of my father's life,
and could read and write tolerably well, I was constantly employed
in making copies of various papers used at the Sessions. Were I
psychologically inclined, I might pause here to inquire how far these
peculiar studies had their influence in biassing the whole tenor of my
very eventful life; what latent stores of artifice did I lay up from
all these curious subtleties; how did I habituate my mind to weigh and
balance probabilities, as evidence inclined to this side or that; above
all, how gratified was I with the discovery that there existed a legal
right and wrong, perfectly distinct from the moral ones,--a fact which
served at once to open the path of life far wider and more amply before
me.

I must, however, leave this investigation to the reader's acuteness, if
he think it worth following out; nor would I now allude to it save as
it affords me the opportunity, once for all, of explaining modes
of thinking and acting which might seem, without some such clue, as
unfitting and unseemly in one reared and brought up as I was.

Whether the new dignity of his station had disposed him to it or not,
I cannot say; but my father became far more stern in his manner and
exacting in his requirements as he rose in life. The practice of the
law seemed to impart some feature of its own peremptory character to
himself, as he issued his orders in our humble household with all the
impressive solemnity of a writ,--indeed, aiding the effect by phrases
taken from the awful vocabulary of justice.

If my stepmother objected to anything the answer was, usually, she might
"traverse in prox" at the next Sessions; while to myself every order was
in the style of a "mandamus." Not satisfied with the mere terrors of the
Bench, he became so enamoured of the pursuit as to borrow some features
of prison discipline for the conduct of our household; thus, for
the slightest infractions of his severe code I was "put" upon No. 3
Penitentiary diet,--only reading potatoes _vice_ bread.

There would seem to be something uncongenial to obedience in an