“I shall never taste hunger again--that honest, bitter, medicinal hunger that merges the mind in the soul. I shall never taste again that ascetic clarity which makes the heart supple and arms the brain.” “You talk like a Methodist.” “My father was a country preacher.” “I expect this is the swing of the pendulum. You must have undergone great mental excitement in making your effort--and what an effort it was! And now the clock has swung right back; you are below par: you have got the blues.” “I hate myself; I hate my cursed profession.” “Yes, the mercury has fallen. The higher the rise the greater the drop. But make an effort to be rational. Look at this.” The solicitor handed the advocate a brief. It was marked with a retaining fee of a hundred guineas. “Two days ago that was beyond the dreams of your avarice. And now it is a mere forerunner of the beginning. You will be compelled to change your quarters and keep a clerk.” “You remind me of the devil--the real authentic mediæval Mephistopheles,” said Northcote, with his fingers trembling upon the tape. “You are in the pay of the genie, you smug-hearted materialist.” “Ah, the genie again! I am afraid to confess that that genie of yours gave me a very bad quarter of an hour,” cried Mr. Whitcomb, laughing heartily at the recollection. “I was never in such a panic in my life. Had it not been the last moment, and had it not been impossible to get any one else, you would never have held that brief. You and your genie frightened me to death. I woke up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, wondering what would happen if you brought the infernal thing into court.” “Well, I did bring it into court, did I not?” “You would never have got your verdict without it.” “Yet you were afraid?” “That was before I knew what it was. But as soon as you got up to talk to the jury, and you could have heard a pin drop over the court, I gave in.” “That is true enough,” said Northcote, in the hollow tone which had discomposed the solicitor at the restaurant, “but once having summoned this thing to my aid, once having taken it into court with me, once, as you might say, having let it taste blood in the arena, I shall be compelled to have it with me every time. It is already out of my control.” “So much the better for you and for those who command your services. This genie of yours will one day be worth thirty thousand a year in cool coin of the realm. If you will deign to take the advice of one who is perfectly willing to be a father to you, I say to you, don’t overdo it. Employ as many devils as you please,--five, ten, or a hundred and ten,--but don’t be tempted into taking enough work to break down your nervous system. Keep that intact and you are predestined for the Woolsack.” “I feel it; and yet, do you know, Whitcomb, it hangs in the balance whether I ever walk into court any more.”