“An Irishman once came to his office:  ‘And are yez Misther Brady?’ ’I am; come in, Patrick.  What is it you wish?’ ’I ax yer pardon; I oughtn’t to intrude upon yez,’ ‘But what is it, Patrick?’ ’Well, yer honor, it isn’t for the likes o’ me to be comin’ troublin’ yer honor.’  ’But tell me what you want, Pat.’  ’Well, yer honor, I came to see ye about a friend of mine as met wid an accident.’  ‘An accident?’ said Mr. Brady; ‘then why don’t you go for a doctor?’ ’Arrah, sure, you’re the docther for my friend; he had an accident which wants yer honor.’  ’Well, what was it?’ ’Well, yer honor, he was arristed for a thrifle of a burglary, shure.’  Quick as Mr. Brady was, with the readiness of his race, for repartee, he sometimes met his match among his own countrymen.  He was once examining an unwilling witness who persistently called him Mr. O’Brady.  At length, even his proverbial good nature being a little ruffled, he said to the witness:  ’You need not call me Mr. O’Brady.  I’ve mended my name since I came here and dropped the O.’  ’Have ye, now?  ’Pon my sowl it’s a pity ye didn’t mend yer manners at the same time.’”

In politics Mr. Brady was a Democrat of the States-Rights school, yet he always maintained that it was the duty of the citizen to render the promptest obedience to the General Government.  At the outset of the late war he gave his support to the Government in its war measures, though he did not separate himself from the Democratic party.  He was frequently solicited by his friends to accept political honors, but he steadily refused, saying that he wanted no honors outside of his profession.

In person Mr. Brady was slender and delicate in appearance.  What attracted the gazer at once was his massive head—­a head which measured in its circumference twenty-four and three-eighths inches.  Age seemed to have no effect upon his face.  Severe mental labor in the course of years took away some of the rosy hues of youth, but otherwise it continued as fresh and as winning as when a boy.

Mr. Brady never married, but no one was more widely removed from the typical old bachelor than he.  If he had no family of his own, he was the head of a family of devoted relatives, who gave him ample scope for the exercise of the domestic affections which were so strong in him.  Very soon after entering upon the practice of his profession his parents died, leaving his brother and five sisters, all much younger than himself, helpless.  The young lawyer at once declared that the care of these dear ones should be his first thought, and he devoted himself to his practice with redoubled energy, in order to provide for them.  He brought his personal expenses down to a low figure, and resolutely kept them there, yet all the while he was lavish in his generosity to those whom he loved.  He once said to a friend who asked him why he had never married:  “When my father died he left five daughters, who looked to me for support.  All the affection which I could have had for a wife went out to those sisters, and I have never desired to recall it.”  He transferred a share of this affection to the children of those sisters and of his brother, and was never so happy as when in their company.  In his will he mentions one of his nieces as his “dearly beloved Toot.”