k" were quite
good enough, and if the domicile proved too small the plan of the first
was simply duplicated. Yet a career of some kind young Jefferson knew
awaited him.

About this time the rollicking Patrick Henry came along. Patrick played
the violin, and so did Thomas. These two young men had first met on a
musical basis. Some otherwise sensible people hold that musicians are
shallow and impractical; and I know one man who declares that truth and
honesty and uprightness never dwelt in a professional musician's heart;
and further, that the tribe is totally incapable of comprehending the
difference between "meum" and "tuum." But then this same man claims that
actors are rascals who have lost their own characters in the business of
playing they are somebody else. And yet I'll explain for the benefit of
the captious that, although Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry both
fiddled, they never did and never would fiddle while Rome burned. Music
was with them a pastime, not a profession.

As soon as Patrick Henry arrived at Williamsburg, he sought out his old
friend Thomas Jefferson, because he liked him--and to save tavern bill.
And Patrick announced that he had come to Williamsburg to be admitted to
the bar.

"How long have you studied law?" asked Jefferson.

"Oh, for six weeks last Tuesday," was the answer.

Tradition has it that Jefferson advised Patrick to go home and study at
least a fortnight more before making his application. But Patrick declared
that the way to learn law is to practise it, and he surely was right. Most
young lawyers are really never aware of how little law they know until
they begin to practise.

But Patrick Henry was duly admitted, although George Wythe protested. Then
Patrick went back home to tend bar (the other kind) for Laban, his
father-in-law, for full four years. He studied hard and practised a little
betimes--and his is the only instance that history records of a barkeeper
acquiring wisdom while following his calling; but for the encouragement of
budding youth I write it down.

* * * * *

No doubt it was the example of Patrick Henry that caused Jefferson to
adopt his profession. But it was the literary side of law that first
attracted him--not the practise of it. As a speaker he was singularly
deficient, a slight physical malformation of the throat giving him a very
poor and uncertain voice. But he studied law, and after all it does not
make much dif