at once to the point of the story."--"Oh--I will, my good Lord, in a
moment. I walked here--I would not even wait to get the carriage
ready--it would have taken time, you know. Now there is a market exactly
in the road by which I had to pass--your Lordship may perhaps recollect
the market--do you?" "To be sure I do--_go on_, Curran--_go on_ with the
story."--"I am very glad your Lordship remembers the market, for I
totally forget the name of it--the name--the name--" "What the devil
signifies the name of it, sir?--it's the Castle Market."--"Your Lordship
is perfectly right--it is called the Castle Market. Well, I was passing
through that very identical Castle Market, when I observed a butcher
preparing to kill a calf. He had a huge knife in his hand--it was as
sharp as a razor. The calf was standing beside him--he drew the knife to
plunge it into the animal. Just as he was in the act of doing so, a
little boy about four years old--his only son--the loveliest little baby
I ever saw, ran suddenly across his path, and he killed--oh, my God! he
killed--" "The child! the child! the child!" vociferated Lord Avonmore.
"No, my Lord, _the calf_," continued Curran, very coolly; "he killed the
calf, but--_your Lordship is in the habit of anticipating_."

HIS FIRST CLIENT.

When Curran was called to the bar, he was without friends, without
connections, without fortune, conscious of talents far above the mob by
which he was elbowed, and cursed with sensibility, which rendered him
painfully alive to the mortifications he was fated to experience. Those
who have risen to professional eminence, and recollect the impediments
of such a commencement--the neglect abroad--the poverty, perhaps, at
home--the frowns of rivalry--the fears of friendship--the sneer at the
first essay--the prophecy that it will be the last--discouragement as
to the present--forebodings as to the future--some who are established
endeavoring to crush the chance of competition, and some who have failed
anxious for the wretched consolation of companionship--those who
recollect the comforts of such an apprenticeship may duly appreciate
poor Curran's situation. After toiling for a very inadequate recompense
at the Sessions of Cork, and wearing, as he said himself, his teeth
almost to their stumps, he proceeded to the metropolis, taking for his
wife and young children a miserable lodging on Hog-hill. Term after
term, without either profit or professional reputation, h