e menaces is also entitled to
hospitality: it is, in the main, Philadelphia capital. Girard himself,
that frugal yet useful citizen, is one of its promoters. My own state,
and Maryland, too, have interests in this work. Is it the part of
hospitality to be taking advantage of our small interposing geography,
and laying by the heels, through our local courts, a young, struggling,
and, indeed, national undertaking?"

"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 g