Ishmael lost no time in carrying his resolution into effect. He passed a very successful examination and was duly admitted to practice in the Washington courts of law.
A few evenings after this, as Ishmael was still busy in the little library, trying to finish a certain task before the last beams of the sun had faded away, the judge entered, smiling, holding in his hand a formidable-looking document and a handful of gold coin.
"There, Ishmael," he said, laying the document and the gold on the table before the young man; "there is your first 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?"