"Mr. Seddon," said the Professor, "pay attention to that. You are a young lawyer, and I would advise you to have the example of M. T. Pate ever in contemplation."
"I most certainly will," said Seddon.
"Never turn your back on a bowl of strawberries and cream," said the Professor.
"Never!" exclaimed Seddon,—"never!"
"Be assured," said the Professor, with much solemnity, "that a sincere devotion to this delicious little berry will finally bring its reward. It will enable you to wait with admirable patience for the big case which is to come and place you prominently before the public. Toney, excuse this interruption. Read on,—I am becoming deeply interested."
Toney proceeded with the reading as follows:
"We occasionally meet with an instance of the falsification of the old adage that fools are the recipients of fortune's favors; for this illustrious man, at the very outset of his professional career, met with no ordinary good luck. A few days subsequent to his admission to the bar, the pious old maiden, whose deplorable ignorance of the Greek alphabet had deprived one profession of an ornament and added it to another, left these sublunary scenes for her supernal abode in Abraham's bosom. She had never forgotten nor forgiven the supposed ingratitude of her former protégé. So far from this, she had, on every occasion, denounced him, with all the vehemence of virtuous indignation, as the black-hearted instigator of a meditated assault on her person. What, then, was his astonishment when he found that she had left a will in which she had bestowed on him all her worldly possessions. This testamentary document had been executed many years anterior to the melancholy event which had caused so wide a breach between them. She had put it carefully away and must have entirely forgotten it; for had her mind once reverted to the circumstance of its existence, nothing short of a supermundane interposition could have saved it from the devouring flames. She left him a beautiful farm, and personal property to a considerable amount, with the unusual proviso in the will that he should be a bishop. Some of her relatives seemed disposed, at first, to contend for the property, on the ground that as he was not a bishop he could not claim under the will. But this learned jurist cited the legal maxim lex non cogit ad impossibilia, and said that although he was not a bishop at that particular period, he would endeavor to carry out the intentions of the testatrix by becoming one as soon as a favorable opportunity should offer. To manifest his sincerity he immediately became a devout member of the church, and would sometimes read the service when the pastor was absent; and this he continued to do even after his secular duties had got to be exceedingly onerous; being apprehensive of trouble about his title unless he observed this wise precaution. Thus was this threatened lawsuit nipped in the bud; and M. T. Pate took peaceable possession of his beautiful farm, which he soon found was mortgaged nearly to the extent of its actual value in the market.
"Pecuniary difficulties, like the rowels of a Spanish spur applied to the flanks of a donkey, impel a man onward in his career. Now, let no one imagine that we perceive any particular resemblance between this eminent jurist and an ass; and we hope that none of his numerous and ardent admirers will be shocked by the simile which we have employed, for it is not only appropriate in its present connection but it is undoubtedly classical. The mighty Ajax was compared by Homer to an ass; but it was only to show what sturdy qualities he possessed, and what an immense amount of beating he could stubbornly endure. With intentions equally as innocent, we have likened the eminent M. T. Pate to an ass, merely to show how stoutly he stood up under the burden he bore, and how he was impelled to vigorous efforts by the spur of necessity. Had his beautiful farm been unincumbered, he might have remained in obscurity, up to his knees in clover, and daily growing fatter and more lazy in the luxuriant pastures of prosperity. But with the burden of a heavy mortgage on his back, and the rowels of pecuniary difficulties goring his flanks, he got briskly into motion, and in his onward career, whether by accident or otherwise, took the right direction, and finally reached the glorious goal at which so many are aiming, but which so few will ever attain."
"What glorious goal has Pate reached?" asked the Professor.