If I could only get a footing,' thought I, 'Lord, how I'd astonish them!
As the song says:--

"Perhaps a recruit
Might chance to shoo
Great General Buonaparte."

So,' said I to myself, 'I'll make these halls ring for it some day or
other, if the occasion ever present itself.' But, faith, it seemed as if
some cunning solicitor overheard me and told his associates, for they
avoided me like a leprosy. The home circuit I had adopted for some time
past, for the very palpable reason that being near town it was least
costly, and it had all the advantages of any other for me in getting me
nothing to do. Well, one morning we were in Philipstown; I was lying awake
in bed, thinking how long it would be before I'd sum up resolution to cut
the bar, where certainly my prospects were not the most cheering, when some
one tapped gently at my door.

"'Come in,' said I.

"The waiter opened gently, and held out his hand with a large roll of paper
tied round with a piece of red tape.

"'Counsellor,' said he, 'handsel.'

"'What do you mean?' said I, jumping out of bed. 'What is it, you villain?'

"'A brief.'

"'A brief. So I see; but it's for Counsellor Kinshella, below stairs.' That
was the first name written on it.

"'Bethershin,' said he, 'Mr. M'Grath bid me give it to you carefully.'

"By this time I had opened the envelope and read my own name at full length
as junior counsel in the important case of Monaghan _v_. M'Shean, to be
tried in the Record Court at Ballinasloe. 'That will do,' said I, flinging
it on the bed with a careless air, as if it were a very every-day matter
with me.

"'But Counsellor, darlin', give us a thrifle to dhrink your health with
your first cause, and the Lord send you plenty of them!'

"'My first,' said I, with a smile of most ineffable compassion at his
simplicity; 'I'm worn out with them. Do you know, Peter, I was thinking
seriously of leaving the bar, when you came into the room? Upon my
conscience, it's in earnest I am.'

"Peter believed me, I think, for I saw him give a very peculiar look as he
pocketed his half-crown and left the room.

"The door was scarcely closed when I gave way to the free transport of my
ecstasy; there it lay at last, the long looked-for, long wished-for object
of all my happiness, and though I well knew that a junior counsel has about
as much to do in the conducting of a case as a rusty handspike has in a
naval engagement, yet I suffered not such thou