The Left-Foot Shoe

I don't know what made my father settle at Baden-Baden, after leaving Ireland on account of two writs and a duel, and seeing life in various towns of the continent. But there he did settle with my mother, who had accompanied him on his travels, and myself, their only child; turned steady with the help of friends; grew half a German in process of time; got himself naturalized; and finally wormed his way into the legal profession and practice, for which, thanks to the baths and gaming-tables, Baden affords a most excellent field. My father had been called to the Irish bar, before what he was in the habit of calling his exile took place. I suppose he had a natural adaptation for the law, which enabled him to slide into the German part of it, for he realized a good business, educated me to inherit and increase it, and left me clients and all with his blessing, while I was yet a promising young man. Promising I was, not only in the eyes of my mother and her female friends, but in that of all Baden who knew my powers and prospects. My family were thorough Germans by this time, having taken an early opportunity to call themselves Von Doranbach—I have got back my proper name of Doran these twenty years—and it was agreed on all hands that I was likely to transcend my father’s fame and gettings, and become a notable limb of the law, till an untoward event made people say the never believed there was anything in me, and upset even my mother’s faith in living to see me an Aulic councillor.

There is no German soil like Baden for growing companies; they bank and build, fetch and carry, send their shares into the market, and smash sometimes, just as in England or any other advanced country. So it happened that a short time before I succeeded to my father’s place and practice, a company—including a half-dozen… Read More