"Oh, yes! scores of them, if wanted."
"Give me the names of the most important and the facts they can swear to."
Mrs. Walsh complied, and he took them down. When he had finished and read over the brief to her, and received her assurance that it was correct, he arose to take his leave.
"But—will not all those witnesses cost a great deal of money? And will not there be other heavy expenses apart from the services of counsel that you are so good as to give me?" inquired the teacher anxiously.
"Not for you," replied Ishmael, in a soothing voice, as he shook hands with her, and, with the promise to see her again at the same hour the next day, took his leave.
He smiled upon the little sisters as he passed them in the doorway, and then left the schoolhouse and hurried on towards home.
"Well!" said Judge Merlin, who was waiting for him in the library, "have you decided? Are you counsel for the plaintiff in the great suit of Walsh versus Walsh?"
"No," answered Ishmael, "I am retained for the defendant. I have just had a consultation with my client."
"Great Jove!" exclaimed the judge, in unbounded astonishment. "It was raving madness in you to refuse the plaintiff's brief; but to accept the defendant's——"
"I did not only accept it—I went and asked for it," said Ishmael, smiling.