"Let the courts of your state, which are pure, decide between us," said John Randel, Junior, relighting the candles with his tinder-box.

"No lawyer ought to refuse the trial of such a public cause because of any state scruples," Judge Custis put in, in his grandest way. "That is not national; it is not Whig, Brother Clayton." The Judge here gave his entire family power to his facial energy, and expressed the Virginian and patrician in his treatment of the Delaware bourgeois and plebeian. "Granted that this corporation is young and untried: let it be disciplined in time, that it may avoid more expensive mistakes in the future. No cause, to a true lawyer, is like a human cause; the time may come when the talent of the American bar will be the parasite of corporations and monopolists, but it is too early for that degradation for you and me, Senator Clayton. The rights of a man involve all progress; progress, indeed, is for man, not man for progress. As a son of Maryland, if he came helpless and penniless to me, I would not let this gentleman be sacrificed."

"If I were a rich man, Clayton would take my case," the engineer said; "my poverty is my disqualification in his eyes."

He again essayed, in a dramatic way, to fan out the candles, but his breath failed him; his hands became limp, and then hastily covered his eyes, and he sank to the table with a groan, and put his head upon it convulsively.

"Gentlemen," he uttered, in a voice touching by its distress, "oh! gentlemen, professional life - my art - is, indeed, a tragedy."

The easy sensibilities of Judge Custis were at once moved. Senator Clayton, looking from one to the other in nervous indecision, seeing Custis's dewy eyes, and Randel's proud breaking down, was himself carried away, and shouted:

"I goy! This is a conspiracy. But, Randel, I'll take your case; I can't see a man cry. Goy!"

As they all arose sympathetically and shook hands, a knock came on the door, and there was a call for Mr. Clayton. He returned in a few minutes, with a rather grim countenance, and said:

"Randel, I have just declined a big round retaining-fee to defend the very suit your tears and Brother Custis's have persuaded me to prosecute. But, goy! a tear always robbed me of a dollar."

"This sympathy to-day will make you an independent man for life," exclaimed the engineer.

"I have done Milburn's first errand right," Judge Custis thought; "five minutes' delay would have been fatal."

CHAPTER XXXII.

GARTER-SNAKES.

At Princess Anne Vesta had moved her husband to Teackle Hall, and he occupied her father's room and seemed to be growing better, though the doctor said that he had best be sent to the hills somewhere.

The free woman, Mary, whom Jimmy Phoebus sent to Vesta, had arrived very opportunely, and took Aunt Hominy's place in the kitchen, where all the children's echoes were gone, the poor woman's own bereavement thrilling the ears of Virgie, Roxy, and Vesta herself; but, alas! her tale was not legal testimony, because she was a little black.