t was attorney for the O'Hallaghans. Many a boast the
O'Hallaghan's made, before the quarrelling between us and them
commenced, that they'd sweep the streets with the fighting O'Callaghans,
which was an epithet that was occasionally applied to our family. We
differed, however, materially from them; for we were honorable, never
starting out in dozens on a single man or two, and beating him into
insignificance. A couple, or maybe, when irritated, three, were the most
we ever set at a single enemy, and if we left him lying in a state
of imperception, it was the most we ever did, except in a regular
confliction, when a man is justified in saving his own skull by breaking
one of an opposite faction. For the truth of the business is, that he
who breaks the skull of him who endeavors to break his own is safest;
and, surely, when a man is driven to such an alternative, the choice is
unhesitating.

"O'Hallaghans' attorney, however, had better luck; they were, it is
true, rather in the retrograde with him touching the law charges, and,
of coorse, it was only candid in him to look for his own. One morning,
he found that two of his horses had been executed by some incendiary
unknown, in the coorse of the night; and, on going to look at them,
he found a taste of a notice posted on the inside of the stable-door,
giving him intelligence that if he did not find a _horpus corpus_*
whereby to transfer his body out of the country, he would experience
a fate parallel to that of his brother lawyer or the horses. And,
undoubtedly, if honest people never perpetrated worse than banishing
such varmin, along with proctors, and drivers of all kinds, out of a
civilized country, they would not be so very culpable or atrocious.

* Habeas corpus; the above is the popular pronunciation.

"After this, the lawyer went to reside in Dublin; and the only bodily
injury he received was the death of a land-agent and a bailiff, who
lost their lives faithfully in driving for rent. They died, however,
successfully; the bailiff having been provided for nearly a year
before the agent was sent to give an account of his stewardship--as the
Authorized Version has it.

"The occasion on which the first re-encounter between us and the
O'Hallaghans took place, was a peaceable one. Several of our respective
friends undertook to produce a friendly and oblivious potation between
us--it was at a berrin belonging to a corpse who was related to us both;
and, certainly