st brief and your first fee! Let
me tell you it is a very unusual windfall for an unfledged lawyer like
you."

"I suppose I owe this to yourself, sir," said Ishmael.

"You owe it to your own merits, my lad! I will tell you all about it.
To-day I met in the court an old acquaintance of mine--Mr. Ralph Walsh.
He has been separated from his wife for some time past, living in the
South; but he has recently returned to the city, and has sought a
reconciliation with her, which, for some reason or other, she has
refused. He next tried to get possession of their children, in order to
coerce her through her affection for them; but she suspected his design
and frustrated it by removing the children to a place of secrecy. All
this Walsh told me this morning in the court, where he had come to get
the habeas corpus served upon the woman ordering her to produce the
children in court. It will be granted, of course, and he will sue for
the possession of the children, and his wife will contest the suit; she
will contest it in vain, of course, for the law always gives the father
possession of the children, unless he is morally, mentally, or
physically incapable of taking care of them--which is not the case with
Walsh; he is sound in mind, body, and reputation; there is nothing to be
said against him in either respect."

"What, then, divided him from his family?" inquired Ishmael doubtfully.

"Oh, I don't know; he had a wandering turn of mind, and loved to travel
a great deal; he has been all over the civilized and uncivilized world,
too, I believe."

"And what did she do, in the meantime?" inquired Ishmael, still more
doubtfully.

"She? Oh, she kept a little day-school."

"What, was that necessary?"

"I suppose so, else she would not have kept it."

"But did not he contribute to the support of the family?"

"I--don't know; I fear not."

"There was nothing against the wife's character?"

"Not a breath! How should there be, when she keeps a respectable school?
And when he himself wishes, in getting possession of the children, only
to compel her through her love for them to come to him."

"Seething the kid in its mother's milk, or something quite as cruel,"
murmured Ishmael to himself.

The judge, who did not know what he was muttering to himself, continued:

"Well, there is the case, as Walsh delivered it to me. If there is
anything else of importance connected with the case, you will doubtless
find it in the brief. He a