ven at present he had no
right to be unhappy.

"I suppose you have no thought of going back to Ireland?" said Mr.
Prendergast.

"Oh, none in the least."

"On the whole I think you are right. No doubt a family connection is
a great assistance to a barrister, and there would be reasons which
would make attorneys in Ireland throw business into your hands at an
early period of your life. Your history would give you an _eclat_
there, if you know what I mean."

"Oh, yes, perfectly; but I don't want that."

"No. It is a kind of assistance which in my opinion a man should not
desire. In the first place, it does not last. A man so bouyed up is
apt to trust to such support, instead of his own steady exertions;
and the firmest of friends won't stick to a lawyer long if he can get
better law for his money elsewhere."

"There should be no friendship in such matters, I think."

"Well, I won't say that. But the friendship should come of the
service, not the service of the friendship. Good, hard, steady, and
enduring work,--work that does not demand immediate acknowledgment
and reward, but that can afford to look forward for its results,--it
is that, and that only which in my opinion will insure to a man
permanent success."

"It is hard though for a poor man to work so many years without an
income," said Herbert, thinking of Lady Clara Desmond.

"Not hard if you get the price of your work at last. But you can
have your choice. A moderate fixed income can now be had by any
barrister early in life,--by any barrister of fair parts and sound
acquirements. There are more barristers now filling salaried places
than practising in the courts."

"But those places are given by favour."

"No; not so generally,--or if by favour, by that sort of favour which
is as likely to come to you as to another. Such places are not given
to incompetent young men because their fathers and mothers ask for
them. But won't you fill your glass?"

"I am doing very well, thank you."

"You'll do better if you'll fill your glass, and let me have the
bottle back. But you are thinking of the good old historical days
when you talk of barristers having to wait for their incomes.
There has been a great change in that respect,--for the better, as
you of course will think. Now-a-days a man is taken away from his
boat-racing and his skittle-ground to be made a judge. A little law
and a great fund of physical strength--that is the extent of the
demand." And M