“Whe-ew!” said the judge, with a low whistle, “and do you really mean to be a schoolmaster?”

“For the present, sir, until a better one can be found to fill the place; then, indeed, I shall feel bound in honor and conscience to resign my post, for I do not believe teaching to be my true vocation.”

“No!  I should think not, indeed!” replied Judge Merlin, who of course supposed the overseer’s nephew, notwithstanding the grace and courtesy of his speech and manner, to be fit for nothing but manual labor.  “What ever induces you to try school-keeping?” he inquired.

“I am driven to it by my own necessities, and drawn to it by the necessities of others.  In other words, I need employment, and the neighborhood needs a teacher—­and I think, sir, that one who conscientiously does his best is better than none at all.  Those are the reasons, sir, why I have taken the school, with the intention of keeping it until a person more competent than myself to discharge its duties shall be found, when I shall give it up; for, as I said before, teaching is not my ultimate vocation.”

“What is your ‘ultimate vocation,’ young man? for I should like to help you to it,” said the judge, still thinking only of manual labor in all its varieties; “what is it?”

“Jurisprudence,” answered Ishmael.

“Juris—­what?” demanded the judge, as if he had not heard aright.

“Jurisprudence—­the science of human justice; the knowledge of the laws, customs, and rights of man in communities; the study above all others most necessary to the due administration of justice in human affairs, and even in divine, and second only to that of theology,” replied Ishmael, with grave enthusiasm.

“But—­you don’t mean to say that you intend to become a lawyer?” exclaimed the judge, in a state of astonishment that bordered on consternation.

“Yes, sir; I intend to be a lawyer, if it please the Lord to bless my earnest efforts,” replied the youth reverently.

“Why—­I am a lawyer!” exclaimed the judge.

“I am aware that you are a very distinguished one, sir, having risen to the bench of the Supreme Court of your native State,” replied the youth respectfully.

The judge remained in a sort of panic of astonishment.  The thought in his mind was this:  What—­you? you, the nephew of my overseer, have you the astounding impudence, the madness, to think that you can enter a profession of which I am a member?

Ishmael saw that thought reflected in his countenance and smiled to himself.

“But—­how do you propose ever to become a lawyer?” inquired the judge, aloud.

“By reading law,” answered Ishmael simply.

“What! upon your own responsibility?”

“Upon my own responsibility for a while.  I shall try afterwards to enter the office of some lawyer.  I shall use every faculty, try every means and improve every opportunity that Heaven grants me for this end.  And thus I hope to succeed,” said Ishmael gravely.