college, the only examination I ever got being a jubilee for the king's
birthday, I was at length called to the Irish bar, and saluted by my
friends as Counsellor Power. The whole thing was so like a joke to me that
it kept me in laughter for three terms; and in fact it was the best thing
could happen me, for I had nothing else to do. The hall of the Four Courts
was a very pleasant lounge; plenty of agreeable fellows that never earned
sixpence or were likely to do so. Then the circuits were so many country
excursions, that supplied fun of one kind or other, but no profit. As for
me, I was what was called a good junior. I knew how to look after the
waiters, to inspect the decanting of the wine and the airing of the claret,
and was always attentive to the father of the circuit,--the crossest old
villain that ever was a king's counsel. These eminent qualities, and my
being able to sing a song in honor of our own bar, were recommendations
enough to make me a favorite, and I was one.

"Now, the reputation I obtained was pleasant enough at first, but I began
to wonder that I never got a brief. Somehow, if it rained civil bills or
declarations, devil a one would fall upon my head; and it seemed as if
the only object I had in life was to accompany the circuit, a kind of
deputy-assistant commissary-general, never expected to come into action.
To be sure, I was not alone in misfortune; there were several promising
youths, who cut great figures in Trinity, in the same predicament, the only
difference being, that they attributed to jealousy what I suspected was
forgetfulness, for I don't think a single attorney in Dublin knew one of
us.

"Two years passed over, and then I walked the hall with a bag filled with
newspapers to look like briefs, and was regularly called by two or three
criers from one court to the other. It never took. Even when I used to
seduce a country friend to visit the courts, and get him into an animated
conversation in a corner between two pillars, devil a one would believe him
to be a client, and I was fairly nonplussed.

"'How is a man ever to distinguish himself in such a walk as this?' was my
eternal question to myself every morning, as I put on my wig. 'My face is
as well known here as Lord Manners's.' Every one says, 'How are you, Dick?'
'How goes it, Power?' But except Holmes, that said one morning as he passed
me, 'Eh, always busy?' no one alludes to the possibility of my having
anything to do.

"'