of little import, deserves a slight mention.  He was a little old man of about fifty-five or sixty years, wearing upon his head a barrister’s wig, and habited in clothes which originally had been the costume of a very large and bulky person, and which, consequently, added much to the drollery of his appearance.  He had been, for forty years, the servant of Judge Vandeleur, and had entered his present service rather in the light of a preceptor than a menial, invariably dictating to the worthy justice upon every occasion of etiquette or propriety, by a reference to what “the judge himself” did, which always sufficed to carry the day in Nicholas’s favour, opposition to so correct a standard, never being thought of by the justice.

“That’s Billy Crow’s own whiskey, the ‘small still,’” said Nicholas, placing the decanter upon the table, “make much of it, for there isn’t such dew in the county.”

With this commendation upon the liquor, Nicholas departed, and we proceeded to fill our glasses.

I cannot venture—­perhaps it is so much the better that I cannot—­to give any idea of the conversation which at once broke out, as if the barriers that restrained it had at length given way.  But law talk in all its plenitude, followed; and for two hours I heard of nothing but writs, detainers, declarations, traverses in prox, and alibis, with sundry hints for qui tam processes, interspersed, occasionally, with sly jokes about packing juries and confusing witnesses, among which figured the usual number of good things attributed to the Chief Baron O’Grady and the other sayers of smart sayings at the bar.

“Ah!” said Mr. Daly, drawing a deep sigh at the same instant—­“the bar is sadly fallen off since I was called in the year seventy-six.  There was not a leader in one of the circuits at that time that couldn’t puzzle any jury that ever sat in a box; and as for driving through an act of parliament, it was, as Sancho Panza says, cakes and gingerbread to them.  And then, there is one especial talent lost for ever to the present generation—­just like stained glass and illuminated manuscripts, and slow poisons and the like—­that were all known years ago—­I mean the beautiful art of addressing the judge before the jury, and not letting them know you were quizzing them, if ye liked to do that same.  Poor Peter Purcell for that—­rest his ashes—­he could cheat the devil himself, if he had need—­and maybe he has had before now, Peter is sixteen years dead last November.”

“And what was Peter’s peculiar tact in that respect, Mr. Daly?” said I.

“Oh, then I might try for hours to explain it to you in vain; but I’ll just give you an instance that’ll show you better than all my dissertations on the subject, and I was present myself when it happened, more by token, it was the first time I ever met him on circuit;—­”