Respectable and remunerative as his line of business had become, it was not long until a wider field was opened to his increased powers, and the experience he had accumulated. The representative of an old and considerable family was threatened with an ejectment by some of his relatives, who possessed a clearer claim to the property than he did; while, in addition to the doubtfulness of his cause, he had to bemoan that the improvident manner in which he lived had deprived him of the means necessary to defend it. Nor were his troubles confined to one law-suit. Other parties, conceiving their rights were as feasible as those of his original adversary, determined on a similar assertion of them, and on one day the luckless wight was served with, I believe, no less than four ejectments. I suppose every body is aware of the indiscretions, irregularities, and extravagances which in that facetious process are alleged against the person whom it seeks to disturb. I need not, therefore, say with what amazement the poor man perused the weighty charges of assault and battery so circumstantially laid against him, or how deeply he puzzled his memory in ransacking it to discover when he could, by any possibility, have committed all these outrages. And who the deuce was John Thrustout, that seemed mixed up so much in the transaction?--he was a civil fellow, anyhow, for he warned him fairly of his danger, and advised him to make the best fight he could. “And, by the powers, so I will,” he ejaculated; “since they say we wallopped them, I may as well have the gains as the name--let them do their best. If Mike Connell helps me, I’ll take the hint, and maybe they won’t have truth on their side the next time they complain of me.”