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 LEGAL 1[ LEAVES 
 
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 LEGAL 
 
 T 
 
 LEAVES 
 
 BEING A LAWYER'S TALES OUT 
 OF SCHOOL 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD F. TURNER 
 
 AUTHOR OF "T LEAVES," " MORE T LEAVES," " TANTLEr's SISTER, 
 AND OTHER UNTRUTHFUL STORIES," ETC. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 1903 
 
 [All rights reserved]
 
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson <&* Co. 
 At the Ballantyne Press
 
 > 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 With few exceptions the Tales and Sketches in this volume 
 have been written in my not very abundant leisure hours 
 during the past eighteen months. The labour, if that can 
 be called labour which has been a purely voluntary occu- 
 pation of spare time, has been very congenial to me, but 
 whether the result of it will find favour with the gentle 
 reader (the reader is always assumed to be gentle, though 
 I have seen an offending book pitched out of the window) 
 is another matter altogether. My fear is that after perusing 
 this volume, or as much of it as he can get through, he may 
 wish I had devoted myself to golf or skittles instead of 
 writing it — my diffident hope that he may like it enough 
 to wish there were more. I do not mean more for the 
 money, but more in a large, complimentary, and even 
 noble sense of the word. 
 
 In these tales out of school I have drawn upon imagi- 
 nation, general observation of life, and personal recollec- 
 tions. In so far as the last of these sources has been 
 pressed into my service I hope it is needless for me to 
 say that I have betrayed no confidence, and have written 
 no word that can cause pain or resentment to any person 
 referred to who is now living, or to the friends of any person 
 who is now dead. Names, places, and incidents have been 
 
 V 
 
 779900
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 so turned about that no cap will fit any head the owner of 
 which could possibly try to put it on. 
 
 Just a few words about the seven short pieces that will 
 be found railed off at the end. They were not originally 
 written with any idea of publication, but for the purpose of 
 being read privately before a certain learned body to which 
 it is my privilege to belong, after full discussion of the very 
 important legal, or, at all events, lawful, subject of dinner. 
 I have had to alter them greatly in order to adapt them for 
 print, and it is for the reader to judge whether they will 
 bear the very different test to which they are now exposed. 
 
 E. F. T.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 MRS. hood's father 
 
 AN IDYLL OF GRAY's INN 
 
 TOKE 
 
 THE WEDDING OF TOKE's DAUGHTER 
 
 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 
 
 BOBBIE JEFFRIES, BARRISTER-AT-LAW 
 
 THE POOR man's CASTLE 
 
 TREAGLE'S PETITION 
 
 TREAGLe's fleeting HONOURS 
 
 THE credulity OF LAWYERS . 
 
 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 
 
 AN OFFICE DINNER .... 
 
 THE COPYING CLERK PEARSON. 
 
 HOW TOMKINS ENJOYED GARDENING 
 
 AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART 
 
 FORGIVEN GREATLY .... 
 
 CONCERNING JUDGES 
 
 I 
 26 
 
 38 
 
 52 
 
 65 
 
 104 
 
 125 
 
 138 
 
 144 
 
 156 
 
 168 
 
 202 
 214 
 226 
 240 
 
 258 
 279 
 
 ATTENDING COURT . 
 
 THE WEARING OF THE GOWN 
 
 vii 
 
 287 
 294
 
 vni 
 
 A PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 
 WINGED JUSTICE 
 FUSION , 
 LAND TRANSFER 
 THE LONG VACATION 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ESS 
 
 300 
 
 • 
 
 305 
 
 
 312 
 
 
 ■ 3X6 
 
 
 . 325
 
 MRS. HOOD'S FA THER 
 
 The client who goes to see a London solicitor on business 
 is not received by a powdered menial in marble halls lead- 
 ing to a tastefully decorated reception-room, even though 
 the solicitor be blessed with a very large practice. He (I 
 mean the client) will generally find himself first in a dingy 
 outer office, where two or three clerks may often be seen 
 engaged or not, as the case may be, in their several tasks, 
 and in which two or three chairs will be encamped in a 
 corner for clients and others to sit upon before being 
 ushered into the solicitor's presence. Extreme luxury may 
 in some offices find outward expression in the addition to 
 the chairs of a table, measuring four feet by three, with a 
 bottle of water permanently established on it, the contents 
 of which would probably be fatal if imbibed, but as there 
 is no glass this is immaterial ; and to while away the time 
 of waiting the Estates Gazette of last Thursday fortnight is 
 occasionally provided, but that is only when there is a table. 
 I have known instances in which the Times is actually 
 taken in for the nominal benefit of clients and others 
 coming to the office during the day, but naturally the 
 clerks generally take possession of that if there is any sport- 
 ing news of interest. There are indeed offices in which 
 there is a waiting - room to which the visitor is con- 
 ducted after going through preliminary facings, but these
 
 2 MRS. HOOD'S FATHER 
 
 instances are so few that they may be regarded as rare 
 exceptions. 
 
 The person deputed to receive clients and other visitors 
 varies according to circumstances, and among other cir- 
 cumstances has to be reckoned the fact that it is not usually 
 his only duty, nor, if it were, would he always be at hand 
 to perform it. He has, for instance, to get his dinner during 
 the day, and he seems to have a curious capacity for getting 
 it during the greater part of the day. Again, he often 
 combines with the duties of receiving people and getting 
 his dinner other useful offices that take him away, such as 
 delivering letters or sending off telegrams. But still there 
 is generally some one whose business it is primarily supposed 
 to be to attend to people when they enter the office. 
 Sometimes it is a Commissionaire, sometimes it is a boy, 
 who positively seems to grow out of his sleeves as you look 
 at him, and sometimes — very seldom — it is a very, very 
 old man who has been in the service of the firm for genera- 
 tions in that humble capacity. 
 
 Such an old man it was who filled that position in the 
 office of Messrs. Merivale, Tyndal & Vaughan, solicitors, 
 of No. 220 Lincoln's Inn Fields. It was an old firm, with 
 a large family business, and there had been successions of 
 Merivales and Tyndals for more years than any living prac- 
 titioner could remember even by tradition. Vaughan was 
 indeed an interloper whose name had not figured in the firm 
 before his own time, but it was to be said in his excuse that 
 he was a son-in-law of the present Merivale, who had only 
 daughters, and that Vaughan's own eldest son, now aged two, 
 was already destined to be articled to the firm, and so bring 
 more Merivale blood into it, at the earliest possible date.
 
 MRS. HOOD'S FATHER 3 
 
 The name of the old man was Bibbles. There were 
 those who said that it was not Bibbles at all really, but that 
 the name Bibulus (apparently some confusion with a heathen 
 god) had been facetiously bestowed on him as a nick-name 
 at some remote period by an articled clerk, on account of 
 his having when a young man just a very slight tendency 
 during his dinner-time in the middle of the day to consume 
 more whiskey than was consistent with a perfectly clear 
 comprehension of his duties remaining to be performed in 
 the afternoon, and that it had been corrupted to Bibbles. 
 However that may be, he was known by no other name, 
 even by the present partners, to whom he had been Bibbles 
 ever since any of them had known him, and it was doubted 
 whether he knew any other himself now that he was so very 
 old. If he did, he never mentioned it. 
 
 Bibbles was so very old indeed that it is difficult to take 
 hold of any particular part of him for purposes of description. 
 He had a face, for instance, but you could hardly call it a 
 face, because every feature seemed to be puckered up into 
 the next one. The wrinkled throat got lost in joining the 
 wrinkled chin, the wrinkled chin merged in the wrinkled 
 cheeks, and there was no line of demarcation between the 
 wrinkled cheeks and the wrinkled forehead. The nose did 
 stand out a little, but, being a very small, snubby sort of 
 nose, not sufficiently to redeem itself so that you could 
 really call it a feature, and the poor old bleary eyes had 
 absolutely no expression whatever in them, except when 
 another clerk (old too, but figuratively speaking centuries 
 younger than Bibbles), who was addicted to snuiT, passed 
 on to him a piece of Reynolds' Weekly News, done up as a 
 little bag, with some of that commodity inside. Then for a
 
 4 MRS. HOOD'S FATHER 
 
 minute Bibbles came really to life and looked positively 
 eager. 
 
 His very suit of rusty black seemed to have congealed into 
 one compound garment full of wrinkles like its owner, and 
 the only item of dress that caught attention was a volumi- 
 nous neck-tie, also black, which appeared to go round his 
 neck two or three times before finishing in a sort of bow. 
 It went round in more ways than one, for it appeared to 
 revolve slowly, and the bow only rested as a rule for any 
 length of time under his left ear. 
 
 The firm would have pensioned him long ago, but when 
 the subject was mentioned he begged to be allowed to stay 
 on. He said that he should not know what to do with 
 himself anywhere else ; that he had neither wife nor child 
 living ; and that to come to the old office where he had 
 been so many years was all he cared about. So he had his 
 way, and did or tried to do his daily work, and retained his 
 own little corner in the outer office, including a high stool 
 on which he had sat ever since he first entered the service, 
 and which nothing would induce him to change for a chair 
 with a back to it, though, when he sat on it now, the upper 
 portion of his poor old worn-out body described nearly a 
 semi-circle, starting with the stool and ending with his nose 
 close to a desk in front of him. Indeed, but for the support 
 afforded by the desk in front, he must have toppled over 
 forwards. 
 
 The older clients of the firm, to whom he was a familiar 
 figure, naturallygot to know the old man, and nothing pleased 
 him more than when one of them would say a few kind words 
 to him, and when any of them called him Mr. Bibbles he 
 sat up with a nearly straight back for quite half-an-hour.
 
 MRS. HOOD'S FATHER 5 
 
 Among those who had always taken a little notice of him 
 was a very wealthy widow lady, whose business affairs made 
 her a pretty frequent visitor, and all the more so because 
 she was exceedingly fond of making wills and codicils. It 
 was not that she was vindictive and given to " cutting out " 
 legatees, but that she loved to change her testamentary gifts, 
 so far as articles of a personal kind were concerned, very 
 much in the same way as some people like to frequently 
 change the positions of furniture in a room. She was in 
 advanced middle age, and had several children and grand- 
 children, between whom she anxiously wished to make a 
 fair and appropriate division of her furniture, jewellery, plate, 
 and such-like articles. The really important bequests of 
 property never troubled her, and had long since been 
 put on a satisfactory basis ; but whereas one sum of ten 
 thousand pounds is exactly the same as another sum of ten 
 thousand pounds, who shall say whether a silver bowl of 
 George the Second's time given to one person is exactly 
 balanced by a valuable china vase or an old cabinet given 
 to another person ? What a problem this presents to the 
 anxious mind when it is desired to treat both legatees 
 exactly alike ! So Mrs. Hood made many wills and 
 codicils, and the silver bowls and china vases and other 
 effects were given to and taken away from particular 
 persons, and other gifts substituted with bewildering 
 frequency. For which and other reasons she was, as I 
 have said, a frequent visitor. 
 
 She had become a client originally because the firm had 
 always acted for her husband and his family. She had 
 brought him no fortune, but had been an exceedingly good 
 and true wife to him, insomuch that when he died he left
 
 6 MRS. HOOD'S FATHER 
 
 absolutely to her his very considerable property in the full 
 belief that she would do what was right and just by their 
 children. She had fully justified his confidence in every 
 way, and the firm, with very good reason, esteemed her 
 highly both as a client and as a good woman, and strange 
 to say they had no objections to offer to her frequent 
 testamentary upheavals of her goods and chattels. In fact, 
 Mrs. Hood's wills and codicils were rather amusing and not 
 unprofitable, and afforded excellent practice for articled 
 clerks even in their first year. 
 
 " What does Mrs. Hood want — another new will I sup- 
 pose. It's about her usual time for doing family post with 
 her present legacies," remarked Mr. Merivale one morning, 
 as he opened a letter in her well-known handwriting. The 
 letter only asked him for an appointment, as she rather 
 particularly wished to see him, and in a postscript she 
 added, " It's partly about a new will or codicil, but not 
 what you will suppose." 
 
 " I wonder what she means," commented Mr. Merivale ; 
 " it may be some feminine fancy, but at all events it will 
 be nothing to do any harm to a living creature I am very 
 sure." 
 
 The appointment was given and Mrs. Hood came. She 
 paused to say a few kind words to Bibbles, according to 
 her custom and to his great pride, on her way into Mr. 
 Merivale's room, and having exchanged greetings with him, 
 proceeded to business. 
 
 " I came to have a talk with you, Mr. Merivale, about a 
 subject that has very often been on my mind, but which 
 I have never felt at liberty to speak about, even to you as 
 my legal adviser, until now, still less to take any other steps ;
 
 MRS. HOOD'S FATHER 7 
 
 nor indeed have I until quite recently had any real prospect 
 of doing so to any purpose. I believe you know that I was 
 the adopted child of Mr. and Mrs. Oliver." 
 
 Mr. Merivale bowed assent to the possession of that 
 knowledge. 
 
 " But I think you know nothing more ? " 
 
 " That is so, Mrs. Hood." 
 
 " I thought so, because my dear husband, though he 
 deeply appreciated the affection and kindness always shown 
 to me by the couple who adopted me and whose name 
 I bore till I was married, always regarded it as a subject 
 best kept to ourselves. He was also, I think, a little afraid 
 that it might lead quite unnecessarily and unwisely into 
 going still further into past history and disclosing the fact,'' 
 (she coloured slightly here, but went on quite steadily), " that 
 my parents were in a very humble class of life. He had 
 no feeling of pride about it on his own account; but in 
 his true loyalty to me he was afraid that I might be 
 injured socially by its becoming known, though indeed, 
 as I always told him, the world was large enough for me 
 while it contained him and my children. I think perhaps 
 he also considered it best for the sake of our children, 
 at all events until they grew up and could reflect for them- 
 selves, that nothing should be known beyond the bare fact 
 that I was the adopted child of the dear good people who 
 regarded me and were always treated by me as parents to 
 the end of their lives. They were not at all rich, but they 
 were refined and highly educated people, and gave me 
 every advantage in their power. My father may have been 
 a cabman for anything I know to the contrary, Mr. Merivale, 
 but it was not the fault of my dear parents by adoption if
 
 8 MRS. HOOD'S FATHER 
 
 any trace of that distinguished origin is observable in me." 
 There might have been just a Uttle embarrassment in the 
 laugh with which Mrs. Hood said this, but if so it instantly 
 passed away. 
 
 " I gathered at different times that my parents were 
 in a poor class of life, that my mother died when I was 
 still an infant, and that I was barely a year old when 
 adopted, and that my adoption was the result of an adver- 
 tisement put into the papers by the Olivers, and was so 
 arranged that even their name was not revealed to my 
 father, though every possible information was given to 
 satisfy him that I should be well cared for. I was also 
 told that it was, a vital part of the bargain on their side that 
 neither my father, nor any other person connected with me, 
 should ever see me or hear of me or attempt to inquire 
 about me. Such crumbs of information I gained, but beyond 
 that nothing ; and indeed I did not know that I was not 
 actually a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Oliver until I was far 
 advanced in my teens. They told me then, as a matter of 
 conscience, that I had been adopted by them, and also told 
 me what I have just repeated ; but they begged me to ask 
 nothing more, and I could see that it would pain them if I 
 did so. They felt, I think, as I believe childless people do 
 sometimes in such a case as mine, a sort of sense of per- 
 sonal injury that it was all make-believe, and that I was 
 not really their very own child, and they liked to put the 
 hard fact out of sight as much as possible. I acquiesced 
 in their wishes, as I would have submitted to any sacrifice 
 for their sake ; but as time went on, and especially after 
 I had left their home on my marriage, my conscience was 
 uneasy as to whether I was acting rightly in making no
 
 MRS. HOOD'S FATHER 9 
 
 attempt to find my father, and, if he were alive and in 
 poverty, to help him. My husband could not sympathise 
 with me in this, generous as his heart was. He would 
 point out that it was not I who had deserted my 
 father, but my father who had deserted me, or at all 
 events severed all connection with my existence, whether 
 his motives were good or bad. He also hinted that while 
 he had the utmost respect and affection for my adopted 
 parents, the resurrection of a real father, who might be any- 
 thing unpleasant to contemplate socially and was morally 
 certain not to be moving in an exalted sphere of life, 
 would be an embarrassing addition to the family. This 
 he would say kindly, as he said everything kindly to me, 
 and in a bantering way ; but I could plainly see that he 
 meant to convey that it would not be fair to him and to 
 our children to attempt to trace my father's existence, and 
 I felt bound to respect that most natural feeling. More- 
 over, any step on my part in that direction would have 
 been even then, as I felt sure, regarded as ungrateful and 
 unkind by the Olivers. My hands were therefore doubly 
 tied. 
 
 " And now I am coming to the point, Mr. Merivale. My 
 dear husband is gone, my children are out in the world. 
 Mr. Oliver died some years ago, and his old wife not many 
 months since. My father, if alive, which is not at all 
 likely, must be a very old man, and if he is alive no one 
 can be hurt now, socially or otherwise, by my tracing him, 
 if possible, and doing whatever is in my power to make 
 his last days easy for him. And that is what I have come 
 about to-day, Mr. Merivale, though, by the way, as I am 
 here I may as well mention that I should like to leave
 
 lo MRS. HOOD'S FATHER 
 
 my diamond pendant to my eldest son's little girl, Muriel, 
 instead of to his wife as at present, and to give his wife 
 instead my diamond feather brooch which is now left to 
 the same little girl." 
 
 " Do you think you are wise, Mrs. Hood, to stir up 
 these old ashes ? I don't mean the pendant or the brooch, 
 but your venerable father ? You will forgive my freedom 
 in raising the doubt, I am sure ? " 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Merivale, I do think it wise — or at all events 
 I think it right, which to my mind comes to the same thing. 
 I am not acting hastily I assure you." 
 
 " It will be a difficult matter to set inquiries on foot." 
 
 *' I quite realise that. But stay, I have stupidly forgotten 
 to tell you one very important thing. I never knew my 
 father's name till quite lately when I was looking through 
 some old papers of dear old Mrs. Oliver, whose executrix 
 I was as you know, and who specially asked that no one 
 but myself should touch them. With one exception they 
 were of no importance, otherwise than as a matter of 
 sentiment — a lock of my hair cut off when I was a little 
 child and treasured ever since by the dear good soul, 
 and other such echoes of the past. But the exception 
 was nothing less than my own baptismal certificate. It 
 had been handed over with me no doubt as a sort of 
 direction in the parcel, which was myself, and had been 
 carefully laid by, and here it is. The names are odd, 
 aren't they, and so exceptional that I hope they will help 
 
 you 
 
 ?" 
 
 They were certainly odd. Her father was described in 
 the document as Augustus Wellington Burton, by occu- 
 pation a clerk, and her mother's Christian names were
 
 MRS. HOOD'S FATHER ii 
 
 Juliana Maria, and Mrs. Hood's own selected Christian 
 names were the same as her mother's but reversed, Maria 
 Juliana. These names had been entirely cast aside by 
 Mr. and Mrs. Oliver, and she had been brought up as 
 Edith, which was Mrs. Oliver's own Christian name. 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Merivale, "these names are sufficiently 
 unusual to give us something to go upon, but, of course, 
 they don't carry us far. This inquiry means money, Mrs. 
 Hood, and money that may be spent to no purpose, or 
 only to establish the fact that your father died many years 
 ago — you realise that ? " 
 
 " Fully." 
 
 " And you are quite decided about it ? " 
 
 " I am." 
 
 "Then, of course, it only remains for me to place my 
 best services at your disposal, as always." 
 
 As a first step Mr. Merivale suggested that a cautious 
 advertisement should be published disclosing enough to 
 attract the notice of the right person, or any one who might 
 know him, and not enough to bring an answer from every 
 indigent old man that might come to see it. Mr. Merivale 
 said he would think this over carefully, and also the selection 
 of the newspapers in which it might be most judiciously 
 inserted, and he asked for two or three days' time to reflect 
 on these matters and any other suggestions that might 
 occur to him at the present stage. IMrs. Hood assented 
 readily, and said she had every confidence that Mr. Meri- 
 vale would act for the best. And then, just as she was 
 about to leave, she paused and hesitated in a way that 
 showed she had something still to say. Mr. Merivale 
 divined this and looked at her interrogatively.
 
 12 MRS. HOOD'S FATHER 
 
 " I know you think me rather foolish about wills and 
 codicils, Mr. Merivale." 
 
 "Not foolish from our point of view, Mrs. Hood. So 
 far as we are concerned the more the merrier, if I may 
 use that word in connection with such a solemn thing as 
 a testamentary document. What I have sometimes ven- 
 tured to think and say is, that perhaps you give yourself 
 needless trouble and put yourself to needless expense in 
 your desire to do what is just about, comparatively speak- 
 ing, small matters." 
 
 " Yes, I know, but I suppose it is an incurable weakness. 
 What I just wanted to say was, that as life is uncertain and 
 this inquiry may take some time — and I am sure my chil- 
 dren will not let it drop if I begin it and tell them how 
 much I feel about it — I should like you just to put into 
 that new codicil about the pendant and the brooch an 
 annuity of ;^2oo to my father, if he is alive and his identity 
 established either in my life-time or within five years after 
 my death. I have thought of this too, and it would make 
 me feel still more easy in mind." 
 
 "You know, Mrs. Hood, that the codicil would become 
 public property after your death, and that it will be necessary 
 to make it rather explanatory owing to your being known 
 only as Mr, and Mrs. Oliver's daughter ? " 
 
 " Yes, I have thought of all that also, and I really wish it, 
 and should like to sign it as soon as possible. If you will 
 just let me know when it is ready I will come whenever you 
 appoint. You can just show me the form of advertisement 
 you decide on at the same time. I fear I have taken up a 
 great deal of your valuable time, Mr. Merivale, but the 
 matter has been much on my mind, and I am so relieved
 
 MRS. HOOD'S FATHER 13 
 
 to have told you all about it. Good-bye and many 
 thanks." 
 
 Mr. Merivale opened his door and called " Bibbles, 
 please show Mrs. Hood into her carriage." This was a 
 special privilege of the old man, and he shuffled off in front 
 of Mrs. Hood almost with alacrity, certainly with as near 
 an approach to it as his aged limbs would allow. She 
 spoke kindly to him as before, and as she drove off waved 
 a hand to him to his great pride and pleasure. 
 
 Mr. Merivale ruminated over the form of advertisement 
 at odd moments, and in the meantime immediately prepared 
 the codicil with his own hand, as he wished to express it as 
 judiciously as possible. It was copied that night, and on the 
 following morning he called in one of his articled clerks and 
 gave him the rough copy and fair copy to examine against 
 each other, telling him at the same time something of the 
 circumstances as a matter of office interest. He added : — 
 
 " I am going to write to Mrs. Hood this afternoon giving 
 her an appointment to call and sign it to-morrow afternoon, 
 so it will do if you examine it any time to-day. Please be 
 very careful about it, and particularly the names." 
 
 The articled clerk was very busy during the morning 
 with other matters, but in the afternoon he sallied into the 
 outer office and secured the help of a clerk to read the fair 
 copy to him while he checked it with the draft. " Please 
 read very slowly," he said, with an air of some mystery and 
 importance, " it's very particular, Mr. Merivale says, and you 
 had better spell the names to me." 
 
 There being no stranger in the outer office, and the 
 document being short, the articled clerk sat down at one 
 of the desks and the other clerk (it was the elderly clerk
 
 14 MRS. HOOD'S FATHER 
 
 who periodically bestowed snuff on Bibbles) began to read 
 in a droning voice acquired in a solicitor's office by long 
 practice, and reaching its highest merit only when it 
 becomes possible to read in such a way as not to convey 
 the faintest intelligent meaning to any one word in its 
 relation to any other. 
 
 After the usual preliminary beginning, and a few sentences 
 carrying out Mrs. Hood's wishes as to the pendant and the 
 brooch, the important part came, and the articled clerk 
 braced himself to follow the somnolent reading very care- 
 fully, and again reminded the other clerk to spell out the 
 names. 
 
 "And whereas I have always been known as the 
 reputed child of the late J-O-H-N F-R-E-E-M-A-N 
 0-L-I-V-E-R and E-D-I-T-H his wife. 
 
 " And whereas I have ascertained from a certificate of 
 my baptism which has recently come into my possession 
 that my father's name was A-U-G-U-S-T-U-S W-E-L- 
 L-I-N-G-T-O-N B-U-R-T-0-N— why, what on earth's the 
 matter, Bibbles ? " 
 
 The question was pertinent, for Bibbles, who had been 
 sitting at his desk stamping letters, had suddenly started 
 up, and with his eyes wide open, and every appearance of 
 agitation on his face, now stood facing the clerk who was 
 reading aloud. 
 
 "What was the name you were reading ?" he asked, in a 
 quavering, tremulous voice. 
 
 " Augustus Wellington Burton, and a rum name it is too. 
 What do you want to know for ? " 
 
 But the articled clerk was beginning to feel that it was 
 not consistent with his dignity for this conversation to be
 
 MRS. HOOD'S FATHER 15 
 
 carried on in the middle of examining a codicil that had 
 been specially committed to his charge by Mr. Merivale. 
 Moreover, he regarded Bibbles, not without some reason, 
 in the light or rather the darkness of a senile fossil. So he 
 interfered with the remark, " Never mind, let's get on. If 
 Bibbles is curious about odd names you can show him the 
 draft afterwards," 
 
 So the examination of the codicil, whereby an annuity 
 of ;2^2oo was in the specified circumstances left to Augustus 
 Wellington Burton, was concluded, and the articled clerk 
 took it away. As he did so he threw the draft on to 
 Bibbles' desk, to which the old man had humbly retired, 
 and said to him good-naturedly, but not I fear reverentially, 
 " There, old chap, now you can study the names to your 
 heart's content. Let me have it when you have had your 
 fill of them." 
 
 Bibbles, whose thoughts, if he had any, seemed a long 
 way off, roused himself, and took the draft into his withered 
 old hands. He did not need to put on his spectacles, for 
 he always wore them, and was popularly believed never to 
 take them off. 
 
 He read the document very slowly, and did not appear 
 to take in its purport at first, but as he got at last towards 
 the end its meaning seemed gradually to dawn upon him. 
 And then he put it down and sat perfectly still, leaning 
 heavily on the desk and with his face buried in his hands. 
 
 The clerk, given to snuff, who had been watching him 
 and muttering] to himself " Poor old chap, I do believe 
 he's going dotty," went up to him, and putting his hand on 
 his shoulder shook him gently, " Now then Bibbles, old 
 man, what are you wool-gathering about over that codicil ?
 
 i6 MRS. HOOD'S FATHER 
 
 Have a pinch of snuff, and don't you worry yourself about 
 the blessed names. Your name is Bibbles, and that's a 
 very queer name too if you come to riames." 
 
 Bibbles turned towards him and took the proffered 
 pinch, for which he thanked him kindly, and then he took 
 up the draft codicil, as his fellow clerk supposed, to return 
 it to the articled clerk. But he did not do that. He 
 shuffled along a passage until he reached a door that had 
 Mr. Merivale's name on it, and after pausing outside for 
 a few moments, as if he were undecided whether to go in 
 or not, he entered. 
 
 Mr. Merivale looked up, expecting the name of a caller 
 to be announced, but Bibbles stood there with the draft 
 codicil in his hand, looking as if he were trying to find 
 words, as indeed he was. 
 
 " Well, Bibbles, who is it ? " asked Mr. Merivale. 
 
 " If you please, sir, it isn't exactly any one, but might I 
 take the liberty of saying a word ? " 
 
 Mr. Merivale was evidently surprised, as Bibbles was not 
 at all a communicative person, but looking at the old man 
 again_he saw that he was trembling all over, and the paper 
 in his hand shaking as if stirred by the wind. He at once 
 got up and put a chair behind the old man, in spite of 
 feeble remonstrances on the part of Bibbles, and almost 
 forced him into it. Bibbles resisted, because to sit down 
 in the presence of Mr. Merivale was to him very like an 
 act of sacrilege. 
 
 " I am afraid you're not quite the thing to-day, Bibbles. 
 Tell me what's the matter." 
 
 But that was not an easy thing for Bibbles to do, and it 
 was only his traditional feeling of respect, and his extreme
 
 MRS. HOOD'S FATHER 17 
 
 desire to get off the chair on which he was impiously 
 sitting, that enabled him, after another pause, to begin : " I 
 was in the outer office just now, sir, when this draft was 
 being examined," he commenced at last, handing the paper 
 at the same time to Mr. Merivale. 
 
 Mr .Merivale glanced at it and said, a little impatiently, 
 for he was busy, and it seemed unto him that Bibbles had 
 developed suddenly a more advanced state of dotage, 
 "Yes, I see Mrs. Hood's codicil — what of it?" 
 
 " If you please, sir, I hope the firm won't think it a 
 liberty, and I would not think of mentioning it in the 
 office or saying a word to anybody but yourself, but I've 
 thought it right and respectful to come and tell you that 
 I'm Augustus Wellington Burton, and my wife's names 
 were Juliana Maria, and our little girl was called Maria 
 Juliana, and when she was quite a baby she was adopted 
 by a lady and gentleman, as her mother was gone, and I 
 didn't know what better to do for her, as I was away all 
 day and couldn't bring her to the office. She was the only 
 one, and such a pretty little thing that it was very hard to 
 part with her, but I did it for the best. Of course, sir, I'll 
 keep it to myself, and the firm may trust me. I've been 
 a long time in its service, and I'm not going to disgrace 
 the firm, sir, now by being inconvenient." 
 
 During this speech, which was by far the longest Bibbles 
 had ever been known to make, Mr. Merivale underwent 
 acute stages of utter incredulity and intense surprise. His 
 first impression when Bibbles finished was that the old 
 man had really gone off his head, and especially as Bibbles 
 rose from his chair and made for quietly leaving the room, 
 as if everything necessary had been said. But something
 
 i8 MRS. HOOD'S FATHER 
 
 in Bibbles's manner seemed to Mr. Merivale's instinct to 
 exclude that theory. Calling him back he questioned him 
 kindly but closely, and took down from him notes of all 
 the material facts and means of verification, and he arrived 
 at the conclusion that, subject to certain inquiries, of the 
 result of which he had little doubt, the firm's old office 
 messenger Bibbles was none other than Mrs. Hood's father. 
 It was not a pleasant or desirable solution, as between the 
 firm and their esteemed and wealthy client, that they should 
 thus provide her with a father from their own staff, but it 
 could not be helped. 
 
 Having obtained all the information he desired, Mr. 
 Merivale said : — 
 
 " Now, Bibbles, I won't keep you any longer. Mrs. Hood 
 is coming here to-morrow afternoon, and in the meantime 
 I shall verify a few facts if possible, so as to be able to tell 
 her everything. She comes at half-past two, and I think 
 you go to your dinner at two. Come back at three, and 
 then wait till I call you in — that is, if Mrs. Hood wishes to 
 see you, as I feel sure she will — as it will give me time to 
 talk matters over with her. I have no right to impose 
 silence on you about a matter that so deeply concerns 
 yourself, but I am glad, very glad, Bibbles, that you have 
 not talked of this to anybody, and I ask you not to do so 
 at all events till after Mrs. Hood's wishes are known. She 
 is a highly respected client of the firm, and I know you 
 will do nothing that could distress or annoy her." 
 
 " I hope I know my duty to the firm after these many 
 years, sir, and you may be sure of me," answered Bibbles 
 quite proudly, and for the moment standing almost erect as 
 he turned to go.
 
 MRS. HOOD'S FATHER 19 
 
 He reached the door, and had half turned the handle 
 when he paused and looked round again at Mr. Merivale, 
 and said very anxiously and wistfully and with an air of 
 having done something deserving of censure, " If you 
 please, sir, my just mentioning this won't make any differ- 
 ence to your letting me stay with the firm, will it ? I could 
 not bear to leave the ofifice I've been in all these many, 
 many years." 
 
 It was a touching question. It was also embarrassing, 
 because it might reasonably be presumed that Mrs. Hood 
 would scarcely leave her own father to remain as office 
 messenger to her own solicitors, and, in fact, the future of 
 Bibbles, however brief in the course of nature, had already 
 struck Mr. Merivale as presenting a problem of some diffi- 
 culty. But he felt that a soothing answer of a non-com- 
 mitting kind would meet the poor old man's case for the 
 moment, and he replied cheerily : — 
 
 " All right, Bibbles. Don't be afraid, you may be quite 
 sure the firm will never do anything to hurt such an old and 
 faithful servant. Set your mind at ease about that." 
 
 "Thank you, sir," said Bibbles simply, and he slowly 
 shuffled out. 
 
 Nothing was observable about Bibbles for the rest of the 
 day, or at all events nothing to attract the not very atten- 
 tive notice of the clerks, and the next morning saw him at 
 his usual post and at his usual hour. But as the time drew 
 near to the afternoon of that day any one who watched the 
 old man closely might have detected a certain nervous 
 restlessness in his manner and movements, and a tendency 
 to lose himself as it were, so that he had now and then to 
 be spoken to twice before he could collect himself and
 
 20 MRS. HOOD'S FATHER 
 
 attend to what was said. It may well be that in spite of 
 his dull and decaying faculties he felt a good deal more 
 than he showed even thus, and that his anxious desire to 
 keep faith with Mr. Mcrivale and disclose nothing to any- 
 body led him to put great restraint on himself. 
 
 His dinner-hour came, and he repaired as usual to a modest 
 old eating-house in a back street, not far from the office, where 
 " Mr. Bibbles' seat " in a certain corner was always kept 
 for him, and was nearly as sacred to him as his old office 
 stool, and nearly as uncomfortable. He had seen through 
 several successive landlords, and the only joke he was ever 
 known to have consciously perpetrated was, that when a 
 change of management took place he always seized the oppor- 
 tunity to remark to the new-comer that he had been bought as 
 part of the good-will, which was literally true, though he was 
 probably not the subject of a separate item in the valuation. 
 
 He was a little, spare man, and at no time a hearty trencher- 
 man, and to-day he was not even up to his usual degree of 
 appetite, insomuch that a waiter who also went with the 
 stock-in-trade, and would have looked old if Bibbles had 
 not looked so much older, remarked on it. 
 
 "You don't seem to enjoy your dinner to-day, Mr. 
 Bibbles. The two on mashed " (signifying elliptically two 
 sausages on mashed potatoes), "are done as you like 'em 
 I 'ope." 
 
 Bibbles shook himself together, feeling perhaps that even 
 there it behoved him to act as if nothing unusual had 
 happened or ever would happen to him, and declared that 
 they were done to a turn, and he was enjoying them 
 famously. But he wasn't all the same, and his dinner was 
 a poor pretence.
 
 MRS. HOOD'S FATHER 21 
 
 " Mr. Bibbles is breaking up, I'm afraid," said the old 
 waiter afterwards to the barmaid, with a touch of genuine 
 regret in his voice. " 'E didn't eat 'is dinner to-day worth 
 speaking of, and seemed absent-minded hke." The old 
 waiter shook his head, and, having given up as much time 
 to sentiment as he could afford, hurried to a sort of shaft 
 which communicated with the upper regions, and bawled 
 out, "One biled beef carrots and pertaters two giblet pies 
 and one steak pudding with chips' urry up with that chump 
 as the gent says 'e can't wait till doomsday." 
 
 Meanwhile, Mr. Merivale had vigorously followed up the 
 necessary inquiries, and as the proofs were few and easily 
 obtained, he had practically verified Bibbles' story by the 
 time Mrs. Hood came to keep her appointment. He 
 would have been more than human if he had not wrapped 
 a little mystery round the disclosure he had to make. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Merivale, you see I am here exactly to time. 
 By-the-bye, I did not see your old messenger Bibbles as I 
 came in. Nothing is amiss with the old man, I hope. He 
 has been quite an institution here ever since I can re- 
 member." 
 
 " He is all right, thank you, Mrs. Hood. It happens to 
 be his dinner-time." 
 
 "That's well. Now, shall I just look through the codicil 
 before I sign it ? " 
 
 Mr. Merivale handed it to her, and as she read it a 
 rather dissatisfied look appeared in her face. 
 
 " Mr. Merivale, I am sure you will excuse me, but I see 
 you have simply left an annuity of ;^2 0o to my father, 
 Augustus Wellington Burton, without saying more. Doesn't 
 that look as if every one knew who he was, whereas
 
 22 MRS. HOOD'S FATHER 
 
 nobody does ? I thought you said it would have to be 
 explanatory." 
 
 " So I did, Mrs. Hood, and I prepared it in that way at 
 first, but afterwards I saw reason to come to the conclusion 
 that a simple gift to him by name would be sufificicnt." 
 Mr. Merivale could not bring himself to let the cat out of 
 the bag yet. It was such a large cat. 
 
 Mrs. Hood did not look convinced, but she had great 
 faith in Mr. Merivale, and submitted. So a clerk was 
 summoned, and the codicil duly signed and witnessed. 
 
 "And now, Mr. Merivale, I should like so much to 
 know how you propose to word the advertisement. Have 
 you had time to prepare it ? " 
 
 "Well, yes — no — the fact is, Mrs. Hood, that I hardly 
 think it will be necessary to advertise." 
 
 " Not necessary ! And why not ? I thought you con- 
 sidered it indispensable as a first step." 
 
 " So I did, Mrs. Hood, but a very extraordinary circum- 
 stance has changed my opinion." 
 
 " What circumstance ? Do please explain, Mr. Merivale, 
 for I am getting bewildered, and if I did not know you 
 to be above it I should say you were playing with a subject 
 that I feel very keenly about." 
 
 Mr. Merivale saw that he had kept the cat inside as long 
 as was either considerate or judicious, so he released the 
 animal without more ado. 
 
 " I will explain, Mrs. Hood. Try not to be very much 
 startled if I tell you that your father has turned up since 
 you were here on Tuesday." 
 
 She was very much startled, so startled that she turned 
 quite pale.
 
 MRS. HOOD'S FATHER 23 
 
 " Where and how ? " she asked, with painful eagerness. 
 " Here — in this office. Your father is simply Bibbles." 
 Mrs. Hood got up from her chair and starting backwards 
 looked at Mr. Merivale for a moment as if he were a 
 dangerous lunatic. He felt that the sooner it was over 
 now the better, and, begging her to calm herself, told her 
 the exact story and the proofs he had obtained. 
 
 A long conversation followed. Mrs. Hood, in the 
 warmth 01 iier good heart was at first for taking Bibbles 
 off bodily in her carriage home, and doing all sorts of 
 things for his comfort and happiness, but Mr. Merivale 
 gradually led her to see that it was a case to be dealt 
 with very quietly. He pointed out how Bibbles had 
 grown old in his present occupation, which had become 
 part and parcel of his innermost being ; the vain attempts 
 made to pension him ; his painful anxiety even yesterday 
 that he should still retain his old place in the office. He 
 admitted that it would not be fitting for him to really 
 remain an office messenger now, but he begged her, for 
 the sake of the old man himself, to go very gently to work 
 with any change, however much intended for his benefit. 
 Mrs. Hood was a sensible woman, and saw the wisdom of 
 the advice and promised to follow it. 
 
 "But, Mr. Merivale, you don't see any harm in my 
 seeing him here for a few minutes now. You say he 
 knows that he is my father and that you will have 
 told me." 
 
 " No harm, of course, Mrs. Hood ; I fully expected you 
 to express such a wish, and will call him in, and then you 
 shall have my room all to yourselves for a little talk while 
 I go out and keep an appointment near here."
 
 24 MRS. HOOD'S FATHER 
 
 She thanked him for his dcHcate consideration and good 
 advice as he moved to the door. 
 
 He went to the outer office, and, putting his head inside, 
 said, "Mr. Bibbles, will you come into my room, please?" 
 
 The " Mr." was an unconscious tribute to the change 
 that had come, but it was such an extremely novel prefix 
 that the clerks there lifted their heads to make sure that 
 they had heard aright. 
 
 Bibbles was sitting on his old office stool and leaning 
 heavily on the desk in front, more bent than usual perhaps ; 
 in fact, his head seemed to be almost touching the desk. 
 He did not move, so Mr. Merivale said it again : — 
 
 "Mr. Bibbles, will you come into my room, please?" 
 
 No answer again. Mr. Merivale went up to him and 
 put his hand on the old man's shoulder, but still there was 
 no answer. 
 
 Say it again, Mr. Merivale. Shout it. Put a trumpet to 
 the deaf ear and call through that. And still there shall 
 be no answer. 
 
 The shock, the vague and uneasy sense of a great change 
 coming into a life that was grown to be little more than 
 a piece of mechanism ; the effort to understand and then 
 to subdue all the half-formed struggling emotions that 
 sought to rise to the surface ; the awakened memory of 
 the little child that he had parted with for her good such 
 a long, long time ago; the discovery that she was rich, 
 happy, and an honoured client of the firm to which he 
 was attached with a fidelity that was rooted in his very 
 soul ; the weight of all this had been too much for the 
 attenuated thread to which his life was hanging. Without 
 a pang, a groan, a struggle, without even the knowledge
 
 MRS. HOOD'S FATHER 25 
 
 of those about him, it had come to pass that Bibbles had 
 posted his last letter and delivered his last message for 
 the firm he had served so humbly but so faithfully, and 
 now his spirit was carrying for him, to a land that was 
 very far off, a message to which the answer would not be 
 received until the day of Judgment. 
 
 So Mrs. Hood found her father — and lost him.
 
 ( 26 ) 
 
 AN IDYLL OF GRA Y'S INN 
 
 Not long ago I had occasion to make my way through 
 Gray's Inn, and to emerge from it by way of Field Court 
 in the direction of Bedford Row. I rubbed my eyes and 
 looked in vain for a corner house once very familiar to me 
 as No. 2 Field Court, but it had vanished into air, and the 
 fact that it had ever existed was recorded only for me 
 in a tablet of my memory. Upon the top-floor of that 
 same corner house used to dwell in my early days a 
 managing clerk in the office in which I was articled, and 
 himself a young admitted solicitor, on whom for present 
 purposes I bestow the name of Johnston. He was a very 
 kind friend to me from the first day that I knew him, and 
 I went often to his top-floor Chambers, where he always 
 gave me of his best, including his best advice, to which I 
 hope I listened and by some of which at all events I hope 
 I profited. 
 
 But I am free to confess that Johnston was not the 
 principal attraction that drew me to his Chambers. He 
 had a very beautiful young wife, whom he had married 
 so imprudently and when they were both so ridiculously 
 young, that if bankruptcy had ensued, the person who 
 corresponded in those days to the Official Receiver, if 
 there was any personage then who in any way filled the 
 post now occupied by that combination of a legal cork-
 
 ^iV IDYLL OF GRAY'S INN 27 
 
 screw and an equitable gimlet, would have had positive 
 buttered toast in the way of telling questions as to the 
 causes of insolvency. 
 
 Let me hasten to assure the reader however that my 
 feelings towards Johnston's wife were of the most intensely 
 proper if sentimental kind. To me she was a sort of fairy 
 in that dingy place, where she seemed to make all things 
 bright and beautiful. When she moved about the Inn the 
 porters in their dingy liveries touched their hats, and seemed 
 for a moment all the better for a sight of her. The law clerks 
 who flitted about looked at her with furtive glances of admira- 
 tion, as well they might ; but not one of them ever stared or 
 spoke rudely when they met her pure and fearless face as she 
 walked by them, generally with a little basket on her arm, 
 prepared to lay out her slender allowance for " house " to 
 the best advantage, and to rout ignominiously any trades- 
 man who was disposed in the language of the psalmist 
 to be deceitful upon the weights. On such occasions she 
 assumed a preposterous but delightful demeanour of having 
 very important business to transact, and hard indeed would 
 have been the heart of any shopkeeper who could have taken 
 an unfair advantage of that bright brave girl. She soon 
 became quite an object of pride I could see to those who 
 lived or had their business about the Inn ; and if, as she 
 moved about alone but with perfect trustfulness, among 
 many men of many sorts and conditions, any one had dared 
 to insult her, I do not think she would have needed a 
 champion for more than a few seconds, and I do think that 
 the villain of the piece would have come off as badly as he 
 ever did at the Surrey Theatre in the last Act, which is 
 saying a good deal. And this mind you, notwithstanding
 
 28 ^iV IDYLL OF GRAY'S INN 
 
 the fact that Gray's Inn, by reason of the many bachelors 
 residing in its high places and the nature of its surround- 
 ings, was not a particularly fitting place in those days for 
 a young and very beautiful woman to live in whose 
 husband was away all day, whatever may be the case now. 
 I say this with due reverence to the benchers, beadles, and 
 all other constituted authorities of the distant period to 
 which I refer, whether dead or alive. 
 
 Often and often I have realised in later years, that I used 
 selfishly to linger on my way home at Johnston's Chambers 
 until his gracious wife could not choose but ask me to stay 
 for a pot-luck dinner. Often and often I have thought 
 with shame that the pot-luck dinner was only enough for 
 two, and was really made to appear sufficient for three by 
 little unselfish devices, whereby she pretended to eat a great 
 deal when in fact it was all make-believe on her part, and 
 she was really covering the retreat of a slender larder by 
 strategy beyond praise, and ensuring that her own husband 
 (not very observant in such matters, though much attached 
 to her) should not suffer from my want of consideration. 
 I erred in ignorance, and would not consciously have caused 
 her self-denial for the world ; but oh ! the abominable 
 selfishness of youth, and for that matter, oh ! the equally 
 abominable selfishness of age. If I were asked to com- 
 prehend in one word the quintessence of all virtues rolled 
 into one — an examination question that is not the least 
 likely to be ever put to me, in this world at all events — 
 I would say unselfishness, and maintain the answer against 
 all comers. 
 
 It was pot-luck, too, I can tell you. There was an estab- 
 lishment in the neighbourhood at which slices of cold
 
 AN IDYLL OF GRAY'S INN 29 
 
 boiled beef, ready cooked, were to be obtained on mode- 
 rate terms. The beef in question was very red, and at 
 times had a strong taste of saltpetre ; but it came in useful 
 when Johnston's only servant had a periodical toothache 
 and could not prepare the modest meal, or when any other 
 domestic catastrophe got in the way of dinner ; and in 
 those days I thought it most palatable, especially when 
 assisted by the greenest of green pickles, and potatoes 
 mashed by Johnston's wife herself. She had a great talent 
 for mashing potatoes, and used to descend after the opera- 
 tion with a most important and responsible expression of 
 countenance, and a colour in her cheeks that was like unto 
 the blush rose, but always delightful to behold. 
 
 The attentive reader will have noticed that I have just 
 used the word "descend," and I did so advisedly, because 
 Johnston's rooms, six in number, were not all on one floor. 
 Three of them, including a microscopical kitchen, were 
 attics approached from inside the set of chambers by a very 
 small personal and private staircase, containing many traps 
 for the unwary, but lending a dignity to the tenancy as a 
 whole that was much appreciated by Johnston and his 
 wife. They were also very proud of a sort of platform or 
 niche in one corner of their sitting-room, which for some 
 inscrutable reason was raised by the height of a single step 
 above the rest of the room. It contained their one book- 
 case, and not having very observant eyes I generally fell 
 up the step and appeared before the bookcase in the 
 position of a prostrate suppliant when I went to get a 
 book. 
 
 I have been keeping up my sleeves to this point the 
 Johnston babies — one baby per sleeve — but their introduc-
 
 30 AN IDYLL OF GRAY'S INN 
 
 tion must be no longer delayed. One was born before 
 they went to Gray's Inn, but the other was born there, and 
 was therefore a real genuine Gray's Inn baby. I will not 
 pretend to say that I was personally fond of them, because, 
 although they never did me any harm, a love of infants was 
 not in me, nor have I ever acquired the taste, but I used 
 to marvel at the way in which Johnston's wife, if I may use 
 the expression, ran those babies. They never seemed to 
 be in the way when I was there, or to make any noise, or 
 to be suffered to become a trial to Johnston, and yet her 
 only lieutenant in the baby department was a maid who 
 did not even sleep on the premises, whose age cannot have 
 much exceeded thirteen, and of whom nothing but two little 
 legs could be seen when the elder infant was launched 
 upon her, and placed, as the legal phrase has it, in her " pos- 
 session, custody or power." How it was done without drugs 
 I shall never know, and subsequent squalling domestic ex- 
 periences in my own establishment have only served to 
 make me marvel the more. 
 
 I remember calling at the Chambers one Saturday after- 
 noon. Johnston and his wife were out but expected back 
 shortly, so I got hold of a book and settled down to wait 
 for them. The sitting-room was perfectly quiet except for 
 a curious little gurgling sound that arrested my attention, 
 not at all unpleasantly, after a time, until at length I began 
 to look round for the cause. I then realised that the senior 
 Johnston baby was lying in a cradle, wide awake but per- 
 fectly philosophical and satisfied with the business end of 
 a feeding-bottle inserted in his mouth. I believe I said 
 " Hullo, old chap," which was as far as I ever could get in 
 the way of communion with an infant, but he did not take
 
 AN IDYLL OF GRAY'S INN 31 
 
 the slightest notice of the impertinence, and without another 
 remark on either side I relapsed into my book and he into 
 the enjoyment of his bottle until the return of his parents. 
 That was indeed a baby without guile, and oh ! my sons, 
 now big enough to thrash me if so disposed, and preferring, 
 not without reason I admit, another kind of liquid in the 
 bottle to that which satisfied Master Johnston then, how 
 different was your behaviour to me ; and what a lot of strong 
 language, uttered by me to the tune of your squealings in 
 the night season, lies at your door quite as much as it does 
 at mine, if not, as I humbly think, more so. 
 
 From the upper windows of No. 2 Field Court there was 
 a side-way view of two scenes, each having a romantic 
 association attached to it. To the left was, and is, a large 
 and imposing iron gate, never to the best of my belief opened 
 then or now, which if it had been opened would have led to 
 a broad gravel walk right through the old Gray's Inn garden, 
 and over which, from the elevation of No. 2 Field Court, 
 the walk and the garden could be seen. In real life the 
 two Johnston babes were carted daily into the garden for 
 country air, being generally pushed in their perambulator 
 by the small maid before referred to, whose head came 
 only a little way over the top of that conveyance (I am not 
 alluding to a deed), and entrance being effected at a side 
 gate. Do not imagine that Johnston had any vested right 
 as an occupant of chambers to use that garden for the 
 benefit of his offspring. What happened was that an open 
 sesame could only be obtained from a Bencher, and that 
 Johnston's wife penetrated through the outer door of the 
 Chambers of a very old Bencher who lived in the Inn him- 
 self, obtained an audience, and conquering the old gentle-
 
 32 AN IDYLL OF GRAY'S INN 
 
 man as she conquered everybody, came forth with an order 
 for the gardens and a blessing from the old gentleman — 
 I don't mean the old gentleman — though I should not 
 be prepared to say what might have been the result of an 
 interview between him and Johnston's wife if she had 
 called on him to ask a favour — but the very mild and 
 benevolent old Bencher to whom she had preferred her 
 request. 
 
 But that was not the romantic side to which I am now 
 coming, because you cannot call two babies in a perambu- 
 lator romantic, however hard you try. The romantic side 
 was that Johnston and his wife and I used to sit on summer 
 evenings at the window and look out at the old gate, and 
 imagine it opened wide to admit gallant knights and high- 
 born ladies, who, in our imagination, walked about arm in 
 arm on the broad gravel path, and occasionally diverged 
 on to the grass. We even pictured an occasional duel as 
 taking place in the early morning up in one corner, and 
 Johnston's wife quite shuddered as I drew a lurid picture 
 of the fatal stain appearing on the white shirt of one com- 
 batant, and his being carried off the field as I put it ; and 
 then I would try to comfort her by a reminder that there 
 was a hospital quite close by in the Gray's Inn Road. That, 
 of course, was a shocking perversion of fact as applied to 
 the period in question, but not more so perhaps than the 
 rest of our make-believe, for I do not imagine that the 
 garden of Gray's Inn was ever largely frequented by gallant 
 knights and high-born ladies, or, at all events, that the gate 
 and the gravel path upon which we looked out were in 
 evidence at that period of history. But I do believe that 
 the old gate and the old garden helped at times to carry
 
 AN IDYLL OF GRATS INN 33 
 
 Johnston and his wife away from the cares and anxieties 
 of daily life on those dreamy evenings, and enabled him to 
 forget the quarter's rent so nearly due and so insufficiently 
 saved up for, and his brave young wife to put aside for a 
 brief space the cutting and contriving of garments, the 
 desire to make a sovereign go as far as a guinea, the con- 
 stant effort to hide from her husband a thousand and one 
 petty worries that she knew instinctively would keep him 
 awake at night and unfit him for his day's hard work. And 
 here I interject the remark that there are wives who seem 
 to take a positive joy in reserving every domestic annoyance, 
 small or great, until the exact moment when a wearied 
 husband turns the key in the front door on his return at 
 night, and who open the flood-gates upon him before he 
 has even had time to read the three-lined whip in the way 
 of application for his parochial rates, which has been thrown 
 down the area during the day with that delicacy which dis- 
 tinguishes the rate collector. She will pour upon him a 
 stream in which float drunken cooks, burst water-pipes, 
 nasty things said or written by dear friends, articles not 
 left at the door because there was no money to pay for 
 them on delivery, a suspicion that one of the children has 
 chicken-pox, smash of the only china vase into fragments, 
 total absence of starch in the things (including husband's 
 shirts) that have come home from the wash. Smith's shame- 
 ful breach of his promise to send back without fail to-day 
 some article in constant use which he has not been mend- 
 ing for three weeks. These are merely random illustrations 
 of the sort of wife I mean, and are put in to emphasise my 
 statement that Johnston's wife was not of that sort, and 
 richly earned the right to people with fancy figures that old
 
 34 AN IDYLL OF GRAY'S INN 
 
 garden, and to describe to us (Johnston and me to wit) 
 what she was sure they would have worn, and what she 
 should certainly have worn herself in like circumstances, 
 and what sort of a kind of a knight she should have 
 expected to conduct her through the gate, holding her 
 finger - tips, and bowing solemnly on every possible 
 opportunity. 
 
 I referred to another kind of romantic view from 
 Johnston's windows, looking out the other way. I meant 
 Fulwood's Rents, much altered in these latter times by the 
 builder, but then a very dirty, narrow, slummy cu/ de sac, 
 commencing in Holborn and terminating with another 
 massive gate of a different kind, which if opened would 
 have admitted the populace into Field Court. And a very 
 undesirable populace it was — so much so that a thieves' 
 kitchen (whatever that means) was generally supposed to 
 flourish there, and the language that floated over the big 
 gate in the direction of Field Court on Saturday evenings 
 was such that it was very necessary to close the window if 
 Johnston's wife was about. The romance on that side only 
 came in on account of a mysterious criminal flavour of a 
 Jack Sheppard and Jonathan Wild description that we 
 associated with Fulwood's Rents, and an impression, no 
 doubt ludicrously mistaken, that it was unsafe to life to 
 walk up into the same from Holborn without a large posse 
 of police in attendance. This caused us to try and look 
 out of Johnston's windows over the gate and into the 
 Rents, with much curiosity, but we could only take in a 
 very small triangular bit, and within those narrow limits I 
 don't remember seeing anything more suggestive of crime 
 than a costermonger's barrow. Still, even at this distance
 
 AN IDYLL OF GRAY'S INN 35 
 
 of time, I vouch for the lurid nature of the language on 
 Saturday evenings, and I trust that it has much improved 
 since, for indeed there was ample room in that direction. 
 
 I think that, on the whole, Johnston and his wife were 
 happy in their Gray's Inn chambers. There was a sense 
 of independence about that set of attics (for such in truth 
 they were) which came near to that of having a house of 
 their own ; and the old inn was very quiet and restful in 
 its way, and the closing of the gates at night gave a sense 
 of dignity to their surroundings, and made it seem to them 
 like living in some place of refuge separated from the outer 
 world. But they were very poor — I did not appreciate how 
 poor then, but I did afterwards, when I went forth myself 
 and faced the world on resources as slender as theirs — and 
 I can remember now what scheming and contriving and 
 consultation preceded some daring enterprise of theirs, such 
 as dining at a chop-house and going to the pit of the theatre 
 afterwards. It fretted Johnston that his wife could not in 
 the days of her youth and beauty have pretty dresses, and 
 ride in coaches, and possess all that her heart could desire ; 
 and that, when her cheeks paled with a long course of Gray's 
 Inn air, he often could not afford to give her the change she 
 needed ; and that Easter and Whitsuntide would pass with- 
 out any chance of packing up for a little country jaunt 
 because of the res angusta domi. I say it fretted him, but 
 I am sure it never fretted her ; for her thoughts were always 
 for others, and she never repined nor complained, and never 
 wished for the moon except in a pretty cheerful way that 
 had no bitterness in it, as when she described the dresses 
 of the fine ladies that her fancy pictured going into the 
 garden by the big iron gate in olden days, and wished she
 
 36 AN IDYLL OF GRAY'S INN 
 
 could have witnessed the proceedings and even taken part 
 in them, and have worn the finest dress of all, and have had 
 her hair dressed in such an astonishingly majestic way as 
 never was seen before or afterwards. I did not attempt to 
 analyse then the indefinable brightness that her presence 
 meant in that little home high up the staircase of No. 2 
 Field Court ; I simply enjoyed it, and was drawn by it, and 
 admired it. And Johnston too, I don't think I do him an 
 injustice when I say that, fond as he was of his wife, he also 
 did not perhaps realise the full richness of her most un- 
 selfish nature, the many little worries that she warded off 
 him, and her constant unremitting efforts to make his path 
 smooth for him and his home happy. He knew and felt 
 the happiness, but he did not trace then as I know he has 
 done in later life the source from which it came. 
 
 I look back over a long expanse of years to the days 
 when I was a constant visitor to that top-storey in Gray's 
 Inn. I have watched Johnston and his wife, metaphorically 
 speaking, go up and, literally, go down in the world. The 
 chambers were succeeded by a very small house, the very 
 small house by a rather larger house, and the rather larger 
 house by a most eligible residence. I have seen the Gray's 
 Inn babies become grown-up men and go out into the 
 world and take wives unto themselves in their turn. I have 
 seen Johnston's hair get thin on the top and his eyes need 
 spectacles. I have seen his lady's face lose the roundness 
 of youth, though never the sweetness of expression that 
 will make it beautiful always. The days of res angusta 
 domi are no more for them, and there is no reasonable wish 
 that money can gratify beyond their reach. Are they 
 happier now? Who shall weigh in the scales youth,
 
 AN IDYLL OF GRATS INN 37 
 
 attended by poverty with its grinding anxiety, against 
 advanced years and riches, and say which will go up and 
 which will go down ? We sigh sometimes for the days of 
 our youth, but don't we often fill those days with pictures 
 as fanciful as the knights and fine ladies with whom 
 Johnston and his wife and I used to people the old garden 
 in Gray's Inn ? We remember the youth and high spirits 
 of early days, but we forget the resinous, cold boiled beef, 
 the pinching and scraping and struggling to make two 
 perverse ends meet, the pleasures we sighed for and had to 
 deny ourselves, the riches we coveted, the ambitious 
 dreams we cherished, the eager looking forward to what 
 we set before us as the desire of our hearts. We were 
 always straining our gaze in front of us then, we are nearly 
 always looking back now, and few there be who can say, " I 
 want nothing more. I live neither in the future nor the 
 past, but in the present, and I am satisfied." It is partly 
 because I cannot truthfully recite that brief formula, and 
 more and more often wander back to the past, that the 
 sight of an empty space, where once was No. 2 Field Court, 
 Gray's Inn, has brought back to me these recollections of 
 the days in which I was a constant and privileged visitor 
 to that vanished building.
 
 ( 38 ) 
 
 TORE 
 
 I HAVE often heard it said that the old-fashioned race of 
 solicitors' managing clerks, grown grey in the service 
 without ever aspiring to the status of admitted solicitors, 
 is dying out, owing principally to the number of young 
 solicitors who crowd into the profession, and are only too 
 glad to obtain such posts as a stepping-stone to attaining 
 their ambition of getting into actual practice. The observa- 
 tion may, I think, be true, at all events as applied to the 
 managing clerks who, in my early days, were employed by 
 solicitors, and were to be seen in their greatest glory at the 
 Chambers of the Judges and Masters in the Rolls Garden 
 hard by Chancery Lane. That particular race has gone 
 through a process of evolution perhaps rather than extinc- 
 tion, because the work which in those days they had to do 
 was far rougher, and, if I may use the expression, coarser 
 than it is now. To give a single illustration — in those good 
 old times all the appointments in the Chambers of certain 
 branches of the Courts were given for eleven o'clock, 
 according to my recollection ; no list was put down of the 
 order in which anything would be taken ; and before two 
 opposing forces could be brought together to do battle 
 before the Judge or Master, one managing clerk nearly 
 always had to shout out many times in stentorian tones the 
 name of the firm represented by the opposing managing
 
 TOKB 39 
 
 clerk until they ultimately met, like long-lost enemies, and 
 then fought their way together out of the pandemonium of 
 the ante-rooms to the dispenser of Justice, in whose presence 
 they then fought each other. This went on more or less 
 all day, and it was eminently conducive to rough manners, 
 a tendency to waste some time avoidably, and a necessity 
 to waste more of it unavoidably, and the punctuation of 
 days spent in those legal purlieus by intermittent visits to 
 neighbouring establishments for purposes of liquid refresh- 
 ment. I may add that, for good and sufficient reasons 
 which I decline to mention, the Chambers were sprinkled 
 daily with a horrible scent bearing a second-hand resem- 
 blance to Patchouli, and that one of the attendants told me 
 it was not an uncommon occurrence for coals to be 
 abstracted from the scuttles by some of the extremely queer 
 characters who prowled about the Chambers like camp- 
 followers of the legal army. The most determined or 
 prejudiced laudator teniporis acti will hardly sigh for the 
 restoration of that particular niche in the Temple of Justice 
 as it then existed in Merry England. 
 
 I am very far indeed from taking upon myself to con- 
 demn bodily as a class the species of elderly managing 
 clerk that more or less thrived under these conditions. 
 He was what his environment made him, and his rough- 
 and-tumble ways, strident voice, and odd costume, varying 
 from that of a dissenting minister in low water to that of a 
 sporting publican, were in very many instances only the 
 outer case of a faithful and able clerk and a kind-hearted, 
 well-meaning man. I am only seeking to point out that 
 the managing clerk of to-day works under different con- 
 ditions, and that his occupation is now consistent with, and
 
 40 TOKB 
 
 has produced in him, I think, as a natural and agreeable 
 consequence, more cultivated manners, and a higher 
 standard altogether. 
 
 This is all by way of a dull preface leading up to one 
 James Toke, who occupied many years ago the position of 
 managing clerk to a certain firm in the city of London. 
 We sat in the same room for several years, I being a very 
 young fledgling and he a very full-grown bird at the time, 
 but I was not actually working much with him as I was 
 imbibing the rudiments of another branch. Still I 
 necessarily saw a great deal of him, and he comes back 
 to my memory as a dear old, muddle-headed, kindly- 
 hearted specimen of his race. We used to talk to each 
 other in what came to be a curiously free and easy sort 
 of way, as if we were contemporaries in years as well as 
 companions in arms, whereas, in fact, he was nearly old 
 enough to be my grandfather. If anything I think I 
 rather assumed to him the demeanour of the older and 
 more experienced man of the world. 
 
 In personal appearance Toke was as nearly like a typical 
 omnibus-driver of that time as anything I can describe. 
 He had a great big, red, smooth-shaved face ; a very sparse 
 population of grey hair inhabiting the territory represented 
 by the top of his head, and a most rotund person, which 
 protruded so much in front of the building line that it was 
 difficult to see how he kept his balance, and, in fact, he only 
 managed it by throwing himself back like the military 
 bandsmen who play big drums suspended from their necks. 
 His walk was a rapid waddle. He wore a sort of wisp 
 round his short neck, and in winter, both in and out of 
 doors, an overcoat of a reddish-brown hue, very like his
 
 TOKE 41 
 
 complexion, and possibly chosen on that account. In 
 summer he endued himself in a black coat, of which the 
 top button alone answered to the helm, and the two lower 
 portions fell away at an acute angle on either side to make 
 way for his protuberant abdomen. He was much given to 
 bringing back from his business expeditions chickens, small 
 joints, and other articles of food done up in straw baskets, 
 and these were an unfailing source of curiosity and amuse- 
 ment to his fellow-clerks, not excluding the present writer. 
 He lived, as I isoon learnt, in a street near Waterloo 
 Station, and his surname without any prefix was inscribed 
 in resplendent brass upon a green front door — whether 
 because he let lodgings, or registered births and deaths, or 
 advised the neighbourhood on legal points (in which case 
 the neighbourhood must have got rather mixed in its 
 notions of the law of England), or only because he was a 
 public character and a pillar of the State down that street, 
 this deponent did not for a long time very clearly under- 
 stand, but I ultimately concluded it to bear a sort of 
 distant resemblance in Toke's eyes to the putting up of a 
 professional name. 
 
 He knew no law whatsoever, and his usefulness (which I 
 am bound to say was not very great, for he was a daily 
 cross to the member of the firm who was his special chief) 
 consisted almost entirely in his experience of the common 
 methods of enforcing payment of debts, which was one of 
 the firm's sources of revenue, as they acted for several 
 large wholesale houses in the city. Hence Toke was ac- 
 customed to pay frequent visits of somewhat inordinate 
 length to these clients to receive instructions for letting 
 loose the terrors of the law upon numerous retail traders
 
 42 TOKB 
 
 in debt to them, and he would bring back these instruc- 
 tions written down by him on slips of paper in a hand- 
 writing so awful that I have never seen it equalled except 
 by one other person. I allude to the present writer. He 
 generally spelt the names incorrectly, or put the wrong 
 debt down to the wrong debtor, or forgot to put down the 
 Christian name, and had to go back again to correct such 
 little omissions ; and how the clients put up with him, or 
 the firm continued to employ him I know not, except that 
 he was getting on in years, and was such a well-meaning, 
 self-satisfied old muddler that no one had the heart to do 
 him a bad turn. 
 
 In the Judges' Chambers in Rolls Garden, as conducted 
 in the way I have described, Toke was quite at home and 
 a well-known figure. He had his special voice there for 
 calling out names of other firms of solicitors, and it was 
 perfectly different to the voice that proceeded from him on 
 all other occasions. I have never heard such a contrast 
 since except once, when I was being conducted over the 
 Castle at Edinburgh by an official guide, and ventured to 
 ask him a question when he was in the middle of repeating 
 by heart on one note his usual shilling's worth of informa- 
 tion. He stopped suddenly, answered (or rather failed to 
 answer) my question in a totally different key, and then 
 hitched on again, at the point of about sevenpence, to 
 the shilling current which I had interrupted for the 
 moment. 
 
 I have wondered, since the days when I was an occa- 
 sional spectator of Toke's wrestlings for and against Justice, 
 how any Judge or Master could possibly have made out 
 what it was that he wanted " Mlord" or " Master" to direct
 
 TOKB 43 
 
 to be done or not to be done, for he had not the faintest 
 idea how to express himself clearly, and generally forgot what 
 he had been instructed to say or applied it to the wrong 
 case. But Judges and Masters also had a soft spot I feel 
 sure for the old fellow who had been about them for so 
 long, and helped him through somehow, and it would have 
 cut him to the heart if anybody had deprived him of the 
 illusion which he cherished, that he was a most effective 
 advocate in Chambers. 
 
 I have mentioned Toke's private abode, but I have yet 
 to tell that I was privileged to see the inside of it. After 
 I had in conversation learnt the address, I was mentioning 
 to him one day that I had passed the door several times, 
 when I had occasion to make my way from Waterloo 
 Station to the city and went by the shortest route, and 
 I alluded in terms that evidently gratified him to the green 
 door and the brass plate. Thereupon he looked up at the 
 ceiling in an odd way that he had, and stopped the task of 
 inaccurately filling up a writ to make the observation that 
 his place was not fit to ask a young gentleman inside, but if 
 I would so far put up with it as to come and have a cup of 
 tea one day, he and Mrs. Toke would regard it as a great 
 honour (he pronounced the aspirate in "honour." Why 
 shouldn't he when it was there?) Then he looked round 
 furtively in the direction of another room, wherein sat his 
 assistant and chief tormentor, who knew much more than 
 he did, and was always showing it in a pert and highly 
 objectionable way, and, lowering his voice to the sort of 
 pitch that he might have used if he had invited me to 
 assist him in passing off counterfeit coin, he preferred a 
 request that I would not mention the matter to any one if
 
 44 ]TOKE 
 
 I didn't mind. I cordially accepted the invitation and 
 gave the pledge, and the date was fixed. 
 
 On the day before the entertainment I noticed that Toke 
 was perpetually going out of the office, ostensibly on errands 
 of business, but returning on each occasion with a parcel 
 indicating from its exterior that it contained provisions, 
 and that he started for home m the evening so laden that 
 it was wonderful how he managed to balance, suspend, and 
 hold on to all he was carrying. But I did not realise until 
 the next eventful evening came, and I made my way from 
 the office to his house shortly after him, that he had laid in 
 on my account enough food to stock the house for a siege, 
 and that the cup of tea modestly referred to was merely 
 his manner of describing a positively gigantic meal pro- 
 vided for my benefit, out of his kindness of heart and 
 desire to do me honour. 
 
 The house had no area or other obstruction between it 
 and a very narrow pavement in a very narrow street, and 
 when the green door was opened to my ring at the bell 
 I was nearly shot head first into the capacious arms of 
 Mrs. Toke, as there was a step down into the passage 
 which I had not observed. The parlour led out of this 
 passage, and I was conducted into that state apartment 
 with fluttering ceremony. 
 
 Mrs. Toke was just the sort of wife that I think Toke 
 required. She was large and also good-tempered, but at the 
 same time obviously ruled over him with a benevolent despot- 
 ism that he did not in the least object to. She also appeared 
 to me to have a capable understanding, and the idea floated 
 through my brain that she would have made the Judges 
 and Masters understand what was wanted much better
 
 TOKB 45 
 
 than Toke if she were permitted to do his work. Also, she 
 wore on that occasion a bright mauve-coloured silk dress 
 with a flowered pattern on it, and I knew that Toke liked 
 bright colours. She wore no tucker nor collar, and per- 
 sonally I like to see some mark of division between the 
 high-water line of the dress and the neck ; but I don't 
 fancy it was fashionable in the streets near Waterloo 
 Station in those days, and anyhow it was no business of 
 mine if Mrs. Toke thought proper to do without it. 
 
 There were also present Toke's only child, who was 
 a daughter of about five-and-twenty, and a young man 
 whom I soon made out to be her accepted lover. They 
 were a little shy in my presence at first, and I in theirs, but 
 when they got used to me their passages of affection were 
 so unstinted as to become trying in a room too small to 
 allow of looking the other way. Toke seemed to feel this 
 a little himself, and once asked, half in jest and half in 
 entreaty, whether they couldn't keep it till they got into the 
 street, which, considering their relative attitudes, was rather 
 an odd way of putting it I thought. 
 
 The parlour, though small, was rather imposing. Toke 
 evidently had his sacred arm-chair, and, opposite to it, Mrs. 
 Toke hers. There were also a case of stuffed birds, two large 
 shells and four small ditto, a round table of that now almost 
 obsolete kind that flapped down when required (and also at 
 times of its own accord) into the shape of a half-moon, and 
 had only one leg in the middle from which radiated four 
 branches designed to support it, and also to get in the way of 
 the human species on all occasions ; a few more chairs of 
 uncompromising elegance and forbidding shape, and a what- 
 not, upon which were ornaments such as might have been
 
 46 TOKE 
 
 picked up in the course of visits to Margate, where Toke's 
 summer hoUdays were always spent. In a small book-shelf 
 was literature of primoeval aspect, and my eye caught during 
 the evening the titles of Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress " cheek 
 by jowl with a " Common Law Practice " some half-century 
 out of date, and evidently discarded at the office on that 
 account ; while on the walls were framed prints of three or 
 four judges, for whom, both as a class and as individuals, 
 Toke had a profound respect, though he told stories about 
 them based upon information received from their body- 
 clerks, and proving, if true, that they were very human. 
 There werci also on the mantelpiece highly - coloured 
 daguerreotype portraits of Toke e^ uxor. 
 
 These details were not, of course, all taken in at once, but 
 dawned upon me in the course of tea, to which we sat down 
 almost immediately. Tea, did I say ; well, yes, certainly 
 there was tea, but it was merely a peg upon which to hang 
 the most portentous meal imaginable. The table did not 
 groan under the weight of it, because the kind of table I 
 have described could only creak, but it did that repeatedly, 
 and the half that was constructed to flap down as aforesaid 
 slanted sufficiently to make me fear that some of the dishes 
 would slide gently off. I think they would have done so if 
 Toke had not been sitting just at the weak point, and they 
 evidently felt it useless to attempt to get beyond the bold 
 front that he presented. 
 
 Of the viands I recall (in^er alia) mutton-chops nearly 
 swimming in butter, shrimps, plum-cake, veal and ham 
 pie, tongue, jam, and marmalade on the table, and piles of 
 muffins and crumpets inside the fender ; and not content 
 with tea, Toke had provided drinks of a spirituous kind, in
 
 TOKE 47 
 
 case I preferred anything in that line to tea. In short, it 
 was a most hospitable if rather overpowering feast, con- 
 ceived by a kind old fellow who wished to show in every 
 possible way that he was pleased to see me, and that he 
 considered my presence in his abode to be an important 
 event. 
 
 I did full justice to the repast, though if Toke had had 
 his desire 1 1 should have eaten enough to sink a ship. The 
 young man engaged to his daughter also made prodigious 
 play with the good things on the table in the intervals be- 
 tween the Acts. I spell Acts with a capital A to signify 
 that the young man and Toke's daughter were as good as 
 a play, if only I as audience could have seen it from a 
 rather greater distance. Toke himself and the ladies also 
 were not backward, and altogether we made a surprising 
 hole in the very ample stock of provisions. 
 
 Conversation flowed quite freely after we had congealed 
 together for a time at the tea-table, and, as I may perhaps 
 now admit without prejudice, after I had honestly tried 
 to conquer a tendency to be conceited and supercilious 
 because very kind simple people were making a great deal 
 too much of me. I soon found that Mrs. Toke, though 
 she governed her husband's domestic life very much to his 
 benefit, regarded him as the greatest lawyer of that or any 
 other age. She lamented that he had never had the chances 
 he really deserved, and more than hinted that if rights had 
 been righted he might have figured on the Bench. She 
 told me as a fact of mysterious import (as indeed it was) 
 that he often read for pleasure that book on the shelf, 
 pointing to the antediluvian " Common Law Practice " to 
 which I have already referred. She said with honest pride
 
 48 TOKB 
 
 that he was always thinking of it and talking of it, and that 
 it was surprising to hear all the things he told her, as no 
 doubt it was when he talked of legal subjects. Toke 
 nudged her to be silent, and told me I wasn't to pay any 
 attention to the old lady, but he beamed with satisfaction 
 nevertheless, and when he settled down in his own special 
 chair with a long pipe, after vainly trying to persuade me to 
 take that chair, and more successfully pressing on me an 
 enormous cigar specially provided by him for my enter- 
 tainment, and of which I managed to survive the first half, 
 he looked as jolly and contented an old boy as ever I have 
 seen. What black-hearted curmudgeon could have grudged 
 him his comforting happy belief in his own legal attain- 
 ments, or his wife her simple loving pride in him as a great 
 lawyer, prevented by adverse decrees of fate from going 
 down to posterity as a Lord Chancellor ? 
 
 It was a subject of evident regret to Toke that his future 
 son-in-law was not in the legal profession. The young man 
 was, however, it appeared, a compositor in the employment 
 of a printer who did a good deal in the way of legal print- 
 ing, and it was a consolation to Toke that there was thus a 
 distant connecting link. He told me in so many words to 
 the young man's face that he had hoped to see his daughter 
 married to a lawyer, whereupon the young man looked 
 guilty and depressed until Toke brightened up with a re- 
 ference to the printing connection. He sighed again, how- 
 ever, when he remarked to me how sad it was that any one 
 should be printing legal documents and not understand 
 what they meant, little knowing that my mental com- 
 mentary, which I would not have uttered for worlds, was 
 to the effect that he managed to get along himself very
 
 TOKB 49 
 
 happily though he suffered from the same disability, foras- 
 much as he never grasped the point of any legal document, 
 printed or otherwise, in this world. 
 
 When the evening waned and I showed symptoms of 
 departure, Toke first pressed me to stay, though not beyond 
 the bounds of true good feeling and delicacy, and then he 
 filled up my glass (not my tea-cup), and the glasses of him- 
 self and wife, and his daughter, and his intended son- 
 in-law, and rising delivered himself of a little speech. I 
 remember nearly all the actual words, but if I were to 
 repeat them I should have also to reproduce Toke's little 
 shortcomings in the rendering of grammar and pronun- 
 ciation, and what he said was so utterly kind and well- 
 meaning that I cannot bring myself to make seeming 
 ridicule of it. 
 
 He remarked that he wished before I went to say that 
 he and Mrs. Toke felt it a great honour to have re- 
 ceived me in their little home, and had tried in their poor 
 way to show it. He knew it was not what I was accus- 
 tomed to (nor was it, for I had never had such a glorious 
 blow-out in my life, but that was not what he meant or 
 supposed), but I had come in kindness to see them just 
 as they were, and he was quite sure I would excuse all 
 shortcomings and believe that they had meant well. He 
 then took his wife's hand very tenderly, and went on to say 
 that if their home was humble it was very happy, and his 
 old woman the best in the world, and that his daughter 
 was a dear good girl, and her young man all he could 
 desire except for his never having been in the law (he spoke 
 of the law in that connection as if it were some kind of 
 medicinal bath necessary for health). He then in con- 
 
 D
 
 50 TOKB 
 
 elusion begged to drink my health, and in hoping that 
 I had passed a pleasant evening, thanked me again for 
 coming, and wished me good luck in the profession, with 
 some flattering remarks upon my eminent fitness for the 
 same, which I fully believed then, though I have had my 
 doubts since. 
 
 My health was then drunk with great heartiness, and I 
 rose in turn and tried to say a few words of thanks for the 
 great kindness I had received, and the delightful evening 
 I had spent, and of good wishes for Mr. and Mrs. Toke 
 and the young couple to whose wedding I begged to be 
 invited. (I was, and I went, and some day I may try to 
 describe that event.) I hope I said what I think I did, for 
 I was most unaffectedly touched and grateful. 
 
 That evening was a great bond of union between Toke 
 and myself, but whenever either of us alluded to it at the 
 office he used first to look round and satisfy himself that 
 we were not within ear-shot of anybody, and I think he 
 enjoyed making it a deadly secret between us, and I am 
 sure I did. 
 
 Not many years after I first knew him the firm super- 
 annuated Toke as being past work, and made a generous 
 provision for his old age, which I believe he lived long 
 to enjoy. He was immensely gratified by receiving, on 
 the occasion of his retirement, a clock subscribed for by 
 his fellow-clerks, with an inscription on it of their regard 
 and respect for him ; and at his special request I went one 
 day to the little house with the green door to " see how it 
 looked," when it was installed in the parlour where I had 
 enjoyed his hospitality that evening. It was placed just 
 where he could look straight at it without moving when he
 
 TO KB 51 
 
 sat in his own chair in his own corner, and this he regarded 
 as a master-piece of ingenuity on his part. 
 
 In the scurry of a busy life I lost sight of Toke after 
 he disappeared from my legal horizon, and he must have 
 been gathered to his fathers many years ago now, but I 
 have no doubt that the evening of his life was serene, and 
 that he departed hence believing himself to be a profound 
 lawyer, and enjoying that reputation in the eyes of one 
 person at all events — his faithful old wife. May the turf 
 lie lightly over him.
 
 ( 52 ) 
 
 THE WEDDING OF TOKE'S DAUGHTER 
 
 I THREATENED in a previous paper that I would one day 
 try to describe the wedding of Toke's daughter, and that 
 one day having arrived I proceed to do so. For my 
 acquaintance with Tolce and the circumstances in which 
 I was asked to be present at the event, see ante stib titulo 
 " Toke." I must ask that attention may be paid to this 
 stage direction, as otherwise much that is precious will be 
 lost by the beloved reader which would cut me to the 
 heart. 
 
 When the happy day was fixed, Toke began to sound me 
 on the subject of my coming. He said that he considered 
 my offer to come had been made " without prejudice " — 
 a professional joke which so pleased his jolly old soul that 
 he gurgled with laughter for several minutes afterwards. 
 He assured me that he had never taken it seriously, and 
 all he could say was, that if I really would like to see his 
 girl turned off, why, he should be very pleased to see me 
 and think it very kind of me to come. I on my part 
 ratified the promise heartily, and it was easy to see that 
 my doing so was a real pleasure to him, which I thought 
 very natural and proper then, though I really cannot 
 imagine now why it should have been so. 
 
 This established another great mystery between Toke 
 and myself, much deeper and more far-reaching than our
 
 THE WEDDING OF TOKE'S DAUGHTER 53 
 
 previous compact about my going to tea at his house. He 
 begged me to say nothing about it in the office, and he 
 did not until the last moment ask for leave of absence on 
 the eventful day from his chief. In the meantime he and 
 I might have been engaged in a gunpowder plot. The 
 subject was never mentioned by him except when we were 
 alone together, and then only as if he wished to wrap up 
 some hidden meaning beneath words of strange import. 
 
 Thus he would look up from his work and suddenly 
 remark : 
 
 " I say." 
 
 " Yes, Toke ! " 
 
 " The fifteenth." 
 
 "All right, I shan't forget." 
 
 '* You know where it is ? " 
 
 "Yes, I know — the one in W. B. Road." The one 
 meant a church, and W. B. was short for Waterloo Bridge, 
 and I put it in that way because the appearance of conceal- 
 ing it delighted him beyond measure, and I think was also 
 pleasing to me. 
 
 Then he would suddenly drop the subject and resume 
 writing in a terrible hand with an awful quill-pen that 
 ought to have been pensioned months before. 
 
 Another time he would break out without any warning 
 or preface : 
 
 " You'll come to my place afterwards, won't you ? " 
 
 " Rather, Toke, that's where the fun is coming in." 
 
 " There'll be a little something spread. My missis '11 see 
 to that. She's, as you may say, up to her elbows already." 
 
 "Indeed, I'm quite sure she will do wonders, Toke. 
 Don't I just remember that tea ! "
 
 54 THE WEDDING OF TOKE'S DAUGHTER 
 
 "I don't know about wonders." But he did, and he 
 thought so himself, having a most profound and just 
 admiration for Mrs. Toke and all her ways and works. 
 
 Sometimes the old fellow would heave a colossal sigh 
 in the middle of his work. 
 
 "Hullo, Toke, what's that for? Away with melancholy, 
 and remember what a great time is coming on the 15th." 
 
 "Well, you see as regards the 15th, I don't say it won't 
 be a regular splash, and I don't say I ain't lookin' forward 
 to it ; but you see there's afterwards, when my girl will be 
 gone. It's 'ard missin' faces you love, and she's our 
 only one." 
 
 The struggle in his mind between the importance and 
 splendour of the 15th, on the one hand, and the loss of 
 his daughter on the other, was very amusing, and also not 
 without a touch of pathos. 
 
 Well, the 15th dawned in due course, and having 
 obtained or taken leave for the day (I forget which, but I 
 hope the former), I dressed myself in my Sunday best 
 and went forth to the one in W. B. road. I may inter- 
 ject here that I had already sent my offering to Toke's 
 daughter, and that it took the form of a butter-cooler, 
 purchased, not without self-sacrifice, out of a rather 
 slender allowance (the best that could be afforded to me 
 by the best of fathers), which comprehended clothes, 
 lunches, pocket-money, love tokens to the lady who might 
 happen for the time being to have possession of my 
 susceptible heart, and some other simple necessaries of 
 life. The butter-cooler was made of glass, which I am 
 sure will have endured the ravages of time, if treated 
 with care and kept this side up, and a material described
 
 THE WEDDING OP TOKE'S DAUGHTER 55 
 
 by the vendor as frosted silver. Judging by the price 
 paid and experience since acquired, I am afraid there 
 was a good deal of frost and very little silver in the 
 bargain, and I have a horrible suspicion that, if the article 
 still exists, that part of it must by now be looking as green 
 as grass, and that Toke's daughter may not feel as gratified 
 as she did at the time. 
 
 I reached the church just as two carriages drove up, 
 with two horses apiece that were nearly white. The first 
 carriage contained the bride, her father and mother, and 
 a stout man, whom I afterwards learnt to be an uncle 
 on the paternal side, who had come over for the day 
 from Peckham. In the second was the bridegroom, with 
 the wife of the bride's uncle from Peckham, and his own 
 best man and sister, of whom the last-mentioned pair 
 seemed to me, even at first blush, to have a most decided 
 leaning towards each other, but how long they had leant, 
 and whether the leaning afterwards developed into matri- 
 mony I know not. 
 
 The coachmen wore gloves and favours, very nearly as 
 white as the nearly white horses, and the bride carried a 
 bouquet, which partly, as I conjectured, from a natural 
 desire to exhibit its beauty, and partly because her father, 
 mother, and uncle took up a good deal of room inside, 
 was in a manner of speaking held half out of the window ; 
 and these various unmistakable symptoms of a wedding, 
 coupled with the unusual majesty of two carriages and 
 pairs going in procession along the Waterloo Bridge road, 
 speedily caused a crowd to assemble, so that by the time 
 the party alighted they had to make their way into church 
 through a lane of which human beings were the hedges,
 
 56 THE WEDDING OF TOKE'S DAUGHTER 
 
 but, unlike hedges, were not by any means silent. When 
 they got into the church quite a representative gathering 
 of the British public residing in those parts followed them, 
 among whom, as the fashionable journalist might say, we 
 noticed three leading washerwomen, one greengrocer's man 
 with a basket of vegetables, five costermongers, a light- 
 weight pugilist, and others whose occupations were not 
 so easy or pleasant to divine. There were also a multitude 
 of children, for whose benefit the entertainment came 
 most opportunely during a holiday season, and also at an 
 early hour of the day when the W. B. road was devoid 
 of pubUc-house excitements in the shape of fights and 
 unceremonious ejectments from the bar entrance of cus- 
 tomers who had become quarrelsome in their cups. 
 
 And now I reach a point which I have been fearing 
 to approach all along. Naturally, my reader, even if of 
 my own sex, will expect me to give some account of the 
 dresses, and I sigh for that form of descriptive power 
 which generally finds its opportunity in the present day 
 immediately after a dramatic criticism, and is headed 
 " The Dresses ; " but I sigh in vain, for it is not in me, 
 and in evidence thereof I make the domestic confession 
 that when I venture upon a remark to the effect that a 
 certain lady, in whose personal appearance I am pre- 
 sumably much interested, is wearing a pretty gown, and 
 that I don't remember to have seen it before, I generally 
 draw down upon myself an acid rejoinder to the effect 
 that she has only worn it at frequent intervals for more 
 than a year, and therefore I have, naturally, not observed 
 it before. I can recall that my own appointments included 
 a walking-stick with a gold top, purchased by me with the
 
 THE WEDDING OF TOKE'S DAUGHTER 57 
 
 proceeds of a Derby sweepstake in the office, a conspicuous 
 button-hole flower, peg-top trousers of a h'ght pattern (our 
 best sixteen shilUng Sydenham make), and a double- 
 breasted silk waistcoat of a flowery pattern, made out of 
 one originally worn by my father, and which procured for 
 me from a pert member of the crowd, at a point in the 
 proceedings presently identified, the title of " young wall- 
 papers." For the rest I remember only such general effects 
 as that the bride presented a vision of white with bronze- 
 coloured boots, and her mother an effect in purple, and 
 that her aunt-in-law's plumage was as green as if she were 
 a parrot. Dear old Toke himself was a fearful and won- 
 derful combination of check trousers, a grey coat and 
 waistcoat that fitted him nowhere, and least of all in the 
 waist, a white hat, and a blue neck-tie, big enough to make 
 colours for a regiment. He was also clothed in conscious 
 pride, as natural, as honest, as innocent, and as beaming 
 as it could possibly be, for the glory of the cavalcade and 
 of the wedding had for the moment entirely eclipsed all 
 conflicting paternal emotions. As for the bridegroom I 
 only remember that he looked, as all bridegrooms do, even 
 in the highest circles, a despicable object of no moment 
 to anybody, and might have sat for his portrait as the god 
 of awkwardness. The bridegroom's best man and sister 
 have left no mark on the sands of lime to me except that 
 they leant towards each other as I have already stated. 
 
 Immediately he caught sight of me hovering on the steps 
 of the church, Toke let go his wife's arm, and coming 
 straight to me shook hands warmly, while he said with an 
 immense consciousness of humour, "So you 'aven't for- 
 gotten the one in W. B. Road," and the wedding pro-
 
 58 THE WEDDING OF TOKE'S DAUGHTER 
 
 cession, which was forming in pairs on the pavement was 
 quite broken up for the moment, while his wife and the 
 bride and bridegroom also saluted me, and every one else 
 was introduced. This proceeding at first interested but then 
 annoyed the fickle public, and it was just at that period, 
 when I was rather feeling a sense of lofty but gentle con- 
 descension towards Toke and his wedding party, that a 
 voice from the crowd called out, " Wy don't you go in and 
 git married instead of making such a fuss over that young 
 Wall-papers." 1 have been called many names, abusive, 
 facetious, sarcastic, contemptuous, but never before or since 
 that day young Wall-papers, and whatever epithets may yet 
 be in store for me there is nothing more certain in an un- 
 certain world than that I shall never again be called young 
 anything. 
 
 But to return to my story, I think that my social status 
 and my cane combined must have caused Toke to regard 
 me as a sort of gold-stick-in-waiting, for he insisted on my 
 going into church first, and after futile resistance I found 
 myself marching up the centre aisle with Toke and party in 
 pairs behind me, and a considerable portion of the attendant 
 crowd behind them. 
 
 When we reached the chancel rails I managed to stand 
 aside and follow the marriage service from a more modest 
 position, and I am not ashamed to confess that when all 
 was over and the names had been duly signed in the vestry, 
 I fairly bolted down a side aisle lest Toke should requisition 
 me to precede the bride and bridegroom as they came out, 
 for I really did not dare to face the people outside in that 
 conspicuous position. I was the more glad to have 
 executed this manoeuvre when I saw that the crowd had
 
 THE WEDDING OP TOKE'S DAUGHTER 59 
 
 swelled considerably, owing to the long stoppage outside of 
 the two carriages and nearly white pairs. 
 
 I have explained in that previous paper which I have 
 implored my reader to study before approaching this one, 
 that Toke's little house with a green door was situated in 
 that part of the world, and I would fain have slipped round 
 there at first after the service. But not a bit of it. When 
 the party reached the church doors Toke spied me out, and 
 nothing would satisfy him but to ride on the box of one 
 carriage and make me take his place inside ; and there he 
 sat and received quite an ovation as we started off, coupled 
 with free and easy remarks, which he took with the best 
 possible grace as being part and parcel of the day's pro- 
 ceedings. And, indeed, the gibes of the crowd were not 
 ill-natured, for his jolly old countenance would have turned 
 vinegar into claret, and good humour appealed to the public 
 in the Waterloo Bridge road as it did in most places in 
 those days, and perhaps does still, though I am not so sure 
 about it now. 
 
 Another crowd, but not nearly such a large one and far 
 quieter, being, in fact, mainly composed of sympathising 
 neighbours, was encountered at Toke's front door — greener 
 than ever, and with the brass plate on it burnished specially 
 for the occasion, and as we descended and filed into the 
 house I could not help seeing that Toke cast one longing 
 lingering look behind at the carriages. He had probably 
 never ridden in a carriage and pair in his life before, except 
 in an omnibus, and was never likely to do so again, and if 
 he resigned the too brief splendour with a little reluctance 
 who shall blame him ? But his hospitable instincts came 
 to the rescue, and he suddenly darted into the house and
 
 6o THE WEDDING OF TOKE'S DAUGHTER 
 
 came back again with two pots of beer for the coachmen, 
 which they solemnly imbibed and evidently appreciated. 
 And then Toke collected the two pewters and paid the 
 coachmen, and they drove off. They seemed fairly con- 
 tented, but had a subdued look on them which gave me the 
 idea that funerals were more in their line than weddings, 
 and such was very likely the case. 
 
 I wish to refer at once to the only discordant note in the 
 subsequent proceedings, so that I may get it out of the way 
 and not dwell upon it afterwards more than I can possibly 
 help, though I am unable, even at this distance of time, to 
 forget it. Toke's brother kept calling me Master Turner. 
 When I record the fact that I was nineteen and had an 
 allowance, the enormity of this insult will be fairly realised. 
 I glared at him, I turned my head away when he spoke to 
 me, I talked to somebody else, I did everything that the 
 most refined breeding coupled with the most profound 
 indignation could suggest, but it had no effect upon him. 
 Poor, ignorant, tactless fool, he knew no better, and not even 
 the plainly-marked outline of whiskers to come on my face, 
 or the down upon my upper lip, or my deep if intermittent 
 bass voice could rouse him to a sense of what was due to 
 me. But let it pass, as he is presumably no more. 
 
 I had never supposed that a larger meal could be 
 squeezed into Toke's parlour than the so-called tea to which 
 I alluded in that previous paper, to which (the paper not the 
 tea) I once again draw the reader's attention, but the 
 wedding feast knocked it right out of time. Well might 
 Mrs. Toke look proud and anxious and fluttered and 
 triumphant by turns. How nine people got into that room, 
 and squeezed in somehow without sitting every minute on
 
 THE WEDDING OF TORE'S DAUGHTER 6i 
 
 food or putting their elbows in it, or leaning up against it, 
 or falling over it, I shall never know. And then the liquid 
 refreshment ! The bottles were standing upright inside the 
 fire-place (it was summer-time), lying down to rest on the 
 sofa, pretending to be reformed characters in the book-case, 
 from which the usual literature had been removed to make 
 way for them. Surely never was such a wedding feast pre- 
 pared in such a small space, or with a more anxious desire 
 to rise to the occasion of a great family event regardless of 
 expense or trouble. And surely also never was a banquet 
 more appreciated by guests. 
 
 Of course, the bride and bridegroom sat together, and 
 indeed I may say that the bride sat on the bridegroom's 
 knee. Now to be in the immediate vicinity of two people 
 in these relative positions — so immediate that to look the 
 other way for any length of time is impossible — is very 
 embarrassing and even provocative of irritation in a general 
 way, but on this particular occasion there were mitigating 
 circumstances. There were, in fact, only eight chairs in 
 the room, and unless Mrs. Toke had sat on my knee or 
 I had stood or sat on the floor my politeness would have 
 been put to sore straits, for I could not choose but realise 
 that I was the youngest person there, no matter how 
 distinguished. Therefore I was glad when the problem 
 was solved by Mr. and Mrs. Roddick (that was the name 
 of the young couple now mated) in that way. 
 
 Throughout the meal Josiah Toke, the brother, pursued 
 that course of persecution to which I have referred, and 
 on which I make no further comment. I was " Master 
 Turner, you will find the 'am delicious," " Master Turner, 
 may I trouble you for them there pickles," " Master Turner,
 
 62 THE WEDDING OF TOKE'S DAUGHTER 
 
 I will say as my brother and sister-in-law 'ave come out 
 tremenjious this day," and other remarks of like character. 
 I feel sure I must have thrown something at him but for 
 the difficulty of not hitting some one else as well in the 
 small space available, and the restraint imposed on me 
 by my respect for old Toke himself, who was perfectly 
 happy and quite unconscious of my lacerated feelings. 
 
 When at length the appetites of all were sated and Nature 
 gave out — not the viands be it understood — Toke winked 
 at me and motioned me to a corner of the room. How 
 we got to that corner and what we passed over in getting 
 there in the way of human beings, plates, dishes, bottles, 
 and other impediments I know not, but I do know that 
 when we did arrive every one else in that very small parlour 
 must have heard our conversation, which Toke began in 
 his most mysterious manner. 
 
 " Would you mind ? " He began, as if that remark 
 comprehended volumes. 
 
 " Mind what ? " I answered. I was quite calm, but my 
 countenance may have been a little flushed owing to the 
 heat of the room. 
 
 "Saying a word or two to wish 'em luck — if you would 
 I should be so pleased and so would my missis." 
 
 I tried to collect my thoughts, and murmured something 
 about his brother proposing it, but even in my nervousness 
 I saw that he had set his heart upon my doing what he 
 asked, so I shook his hand, which he held out in an 
 irresistibly appealing way, and then we did another hurdle 
 race back to our seats, and pretended nothing had happened, 
 and then after a pause I rose and delivered the following 
 remarkably fine oration :
 
 THE WEDDING OF TOKE'S DAUGHTER 63 
 
 "My dear Toke and Mrs. Toke and friends. We 
 cannot possibly think of anything to-day but the happiness 
 of Mr. and Mrs. Roddick, whom we have seen joined 
 together as man and wife, and whose wedding we have 
 now been celebrating in a most scrumptious feast. I am 
 not married myself yet " 
 
 (Roars of laughter from the ladies and an interjection by 
 Toke's brother, " Go it. Master Turner.") 
 
 " But I hope to be one day, and I only trust that I may 
 find such a pretty and charming wife as Mr, Roddick 
 has " 
 
 (Toke rose at this point and solemnly shook my hand 
 again.) 
 
 " I am sure we wish Mr. and Mrs. Roddick every joy 
 and happiness, but we must not forget that Mr. and Mrs. 
 Toke are parting with a very dear daughter " 
 
 (Total collapse of Mrs. Toke and momentary shadow on 
 Toke's own cheery face.) 
 
 " But then they have no son, and they must look upon 
 Mr. Roddick as a son found instead of fancying that they 
 have lost a daughter " 
 
 (This highly original remark — never made before, in fact, 
 to the best of my belief on any similar occasion and all 
 rights in which are reserved — fairly brought down the 
 house, and Toke's brother so far forgot himself as to say, 
 " Ooray, Master Turner.") 
 
 "And so let us drink to the health of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Roddick, and at the same time thank Mr. and Mrs. Toke 
 for their bountiful hospitality on this happy occasion." 
 
 We drank the toast in bumpers right heartily, and in 
 truth I really began to feel a little giddy for reasons that
 
 64 THE WEDDING OF TONE'S DAUGHTER 
 
 I could not attribute exclusively to the warmth of the 
 room. And then Mr. Roddick got up and said a few very 
 modest manly words, and he gratified Toke beyond measure 
 by expressing his regret that he was not in the law, "of 
 which my father-in-law is a ornament likewise a honour." 
 
 Were there more toasts? Yes, I believe there were. 
 The health of Mr. and Mrs. Toke, of Toke's brother and 
 his wife, of the best man and the bridegroom's sister (still 
 leaning towards each other visibly), of my noble self — all 
 these were, I believe, proposed and responded to, but I am 
 not very clear as to the actual words employed, or the 
 order of the toasts- Then I seem to remember that Toke's 
 daughter disappeared in her white dress, and came down 
 shortly afterwards in a blue dress. Then there was a sort 
 of leave-taking, and the bride and bridegroom departed, arm 
 in arm, to their own abode, which was a lodging only about 
 a hundred yards off, and a slipper was thrown after them, 
 and Toke's brother knocked the bridegroom's hat over his 
 head and thought it funny, but the bridegroom didn't nor 
 did I. Then the others melted, and I somehow stayed to 
 the last, possibly in order to prepare my legs for the duty of 
 walking straight, and said a hearty good-bye to Toke and 
 his wife ; and having started without my gold-headed stick, 
 I went back again, and softly entering the parlour for a 
 moment to recover that article I saw old Toke seated in 
 his own special chair, with tears coursing down his face, and 
 beside him his good and faithful wife holding his hand and 
 murmuring words of; comfort through her own sobs. For 
 the carriages had vanished, the wedding feast was over, and 
 their only child had left them to be very near, but as their 
 hearts told them to be also very far from that time forth.
 
 ( 65 ) 
 
 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE WIDE GULF \ 
 
 It was a notorious fact in the profession that Mr. Thomas 
 Pickering and Mr. George Debenham, constituting together 
 the well-known firm of Paterson, Pickering & Debenham, 
 solicitors in the city of London, were not on good terms 
 with each other. Whether they had agreed better during 
 the lifetime of Paterson, who had been dead more than 
 twenty years though his name survived, was a matter of 
 conjecture now, except to a few of the old stagers in the 
 profession who remembered the firm in Paterson's time. 
 They said that Paterson was so much older than the other 
 two, and had such a control over the business, that the 
 junior partners had not very much opportunity of openly 
 quarrelling in those days, even if so disposed. The trouble 
 came soon after they had cut up the Paterson cake, or, in 
 other words, succeeded to his share, and become partners 
 on exactly level terms. They were also nearly level in 
 point of age. 
 
 The original cause of quarrel was involved in obscurity : 
 very likely they had forgotten it themselves now. Jealousy 
 was probably at the root of it, for each of them considered, 
 and always had considered, that he was the pillar of the firm,
 
 66 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 
 
 and his partner a mere nonentity in the business. On the 
 top of jealousy money most likely raised its ugly head as a 
 cause of dissension, for if Pickering considered that he was 
 carrying the whole burden of the business and that Deben- 
 ham's efforts were not worth half-a-crown, it would naturally 
 vex the spirit of Pickering to see Debenham pocket half 
 the profits. Contrariwise, if Debenham entertained pre- 
 cisely the converse opinion on the same point he might be 
 expected to groan over Pickering's bloated proportion of the 
 fruit of their labours. As a dry matter of fact, they were 
 both very able men, and the opinion of each of them as to 
 the value to the business of the other was sheer jaundice- 
 eyed nonsense. 
 
 Once started, the quarrel had grown deeper and the gulf 
 between them wider. From open bickering — conducted 
 sometimes in Pickering's room and sometimes in Deben- 
 ham's room, but always overheard by clerks when their 
 voices ascended to angry heights, as they generally did — 
 they got to avoiding each other as much as possible and 
 exchanging the fewest possible remarks. And from that 
 stage they arrived at the point of ceasing to exchange any 
 direct personal communications whatever with each other, 
 and employed as a medium, for the purpose of conveying 
 anything that absolutely had to be said, Sanderson, the 
 cashier, a quiet, reticent man with a very soothing manner, 
 who had been with the firm many years and was a trusted 
 clerk, and who also, as it happened, had never become a 
 rock of offence to either partner in their disputes. 
 
 They differed about everything. The black of Pickering 
 was the white of Debenham. By their partnership agree- 
 ment various things could only be done by mutual consent.
 
 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 67 
 
 Only in a case of overwhelming necessity was the mutual 
 consent ever forthcoming. If one of them wanted to 
 dismiss a clerk as an idle, good-for-nothing fellow, the 
 other forthwith endued that clerk in a panoply of imaginary 
 virtues, and would on no account part with him. If there 
 was a vacancy and a clerk had to be engaged, they never 
 agreed in selecting the same person, and generally had to 
 come at last, when the business was really suffering (they 
 always stopped short in their folly at this point), to nomi- 
 nally leaving it to Sanderson to suggest, as it were on his 
 own account, a candidate whom they both really knew to 
 be the best. If Pickering proposed that the firm should 
 take up a particular piece of business, to which their mutual 
 consent was necessary, Debenham would object, as a matter 
 of course, until he saw that it would be a good thing lost to 
 the firm, and then at the last moment he would surlily give 
 way. If the proposal came from Debenham, Pickering 
 would play a return match on the same principle. 
 
 It may well be wondered — it often was wondered at by 
 those not behind the scenes — why these two men remained 
 in partnership when they positively hated each other, and 
 their association was very much like the string by which two 
 dogs may be tied by the tails. There were two reasons. 
 
 First, the very powerful motive of self-interest. Each 
 of them knew that, if the loaf were cut up, it was uncertain 
 what might be the size of his part, and tolerably certain 
 that a good many crumbs, if not slices, would be picked up 
 by hungry professional sparrows, and that the scandal and 
 loss of prestige, to say nothing of the expense of two sepa- 
 rate offices and staffs instead of one, would be all to the 
 bad in the reckoning up.
 
 68 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 
 
 Secondly, since Sanderson had been instituted as a go- 
 between he had operated as a safety-valve to both partners, 
 who let off at him all their otherwise suppressed steam 
 against each other. And the odd thing was that Sanderson 
 was always perfectly quiet and respectful, and never took 
 any liberty with either of them, but passed on from one angry 
 partner to the other exactly as much or as little as he 
 thought expedient, and that each partner, when he liberated 
 his soul by abusing the other partner to Sanderson, knew 
 perfectly well that Sanderson would edit to any extent all 
 the savage messages of which he was the bearer. They 
 both had also an odd way on these occasions of flattering 
 Sanderson himself as if to enlist his sympathy. 
 
 An illustration of the Sanderson system will perhaps 
 make it clearer. He entered Pickering's room one morn- 
 ing with a message from Mr. Debenham to the effect that 
 there was a large balance at the bank, and that he sug- 
 gested the drawing out by the partners of ;!^iooo each. 
 Sanderson respectfully delivered his message, and Pickering, 
 who happened to be particularly irritable that morning 
 because a personal client had called yesterday, and in his 
 absence had seen Debenham, who had sent in to him a 
 curt memorandum of what had passed, at once broke out 
 in red-hot fashion, "Oh ! thai is what Mr. Debenham says, 
 is it ! Well then, Sanderson, you will please just tell him 
 from me that I utterly object to do anything of the kind. 
 I know I may trust you, Sanderson, and I don't mind 
 telling you that Mr. Debenham would ruin this business if 
 he could, and, what's more, you may tell him I said so. 
 He is always wanting to draw money, whether it is there or 
 not." (This was perfectly untrue and he knew it, and knew
 
 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 69 
 
 that Sanderson knew it, but he was now riding on the whirl- 
 wind, and the truth was not in him when taking that form 
 of exercise.) " I do all the work, and all he thinks about 
 is grabbing money that he doesn't earn, and you may tell 
 him that too, Sanderson. I don't think I have ever said 
 this before, Sanderson " (he had at least a hundred times), 
 " and I don't like saying it now, but I expect you know it 
 pretty well already, for you are an observant man. Please 
 tell Mr. Debenham every word of it, and perhaps he'll 
 like it." 
 
 Sanderson gave a deferential bow which deprecated the 
 compliment paid to him and committed him to nothing, 
 and then went on an embassy to Debenham. 
 
 " If you please, sir, Mr. Pickering says that he doesn't 
 think it would be wise to draw anything out just at 
 present." 
 
 " Oh, does he say that ? Perhaps he'd prefer our never 
 drawing any money at all, and would like me to give it all 
 back to the clients. Go and ask him, will you, Sanderson ? " 
 
 Sanderson did not go, because he knew it was not meant 
 that he should, and Debenham at once resumed : — 
 
 " Here I work in this blessed office, day after day, early 
 and late, till I can't call my soul my own, and keep the 
 whole business together, and, forsooth, my esteemed partner 
 will not even let me take my miserable half of the profits 
 when the money is lying idle in the bank waiting to be 
 drawn. Sanderson, you have been in a confidential posi- 
 tion here for many years, and know that what I am saying 
 is true, because I feel sure that nothing escapes your 
 notice, though you are too loyal to say anything. It is 
 perfectly unbearable, and I request you to tell Mr.
 
 70 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 
 
 Pickering from me that I consider his rejection of my 
 proposal a mean, ungentlemanly act, nothing more or less." 
 
 But again Sanderson did not go, and again the reason 
 was that he knew Debenham was only blowing off steam 
 and that it was doing him good. 
 
 "Well, Sanderson," growled Debenham after a pause, 
 ** I suppose I must put up with Mr. Pickering's nice little 
 ways once more. But flesh and blood can't stand much 
 more of it, and you will see a change in this firm before 
 long. I think I know which of us you will cast in your lot 
 with, Sanderson, when the day comes." 
 
 He meant, of course, himself, but as he had said the 
 same thing to Sanderson at frequent intervals during the 
 last twenty years, and as Sanderson, after long experience 
 of both his masters, had not the remotest belief that the 
 threatened break-up of the firm would ever take place, that 
 astute and reticent but perfectly loyal person merely turned 
 the subject with the remark, which he made with the 
 faintest approximation to a smile on his face : 
 
 " I think, sir, if I might venture to say it, that if in a few 
 days' time I were to go and tell Mr. Pickering that there's 
 a lot of money in the bank, and doesn't he think it would 
 be as well for the firm to draw some out, he might very 
 likely say he quite agreed, and tell me to ask you." 
 
 Fuming and fretting as he was, Debenham was quite 
 alive to the fact that the suggestion offered a way of escape 
 from the deadlock, and with a gesture from him in which 
 disgust at the situation and acceptance of the hint were 
 blended in equal proportions, Sanderson melted. I may 
 add that if the suggestion of drawing out money had 
 come from Pickering, Debenham would have immediately
 
 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 71 
 
 objected, and that both would probably have starved 
 rather than give in but for the judicious Sanderson, who 
 always made the same suggestion as on the present 
 occasion and always with the desired result. 
 
 In his heart of hearts Sanderson thought them, in all 
 matters personal to themselves as a firm, a pair of idiots. 
 But he never showed it, and he never said so even to Mrs. 
 Sanderson. 
 
 Both partners were married, but whereas Pickering had 
 only one child, a daughter, Debenham had several children, 
 boys and girls, and at the time to which I am referring his 
 eldest son, Hubert, was just of an age at which his career 
 in life had to be chosen. He had been to college and 
 taken a very fair degree. Naturally, his father bethought 
 him of his own branch of the law, and Hubert being quite 
 willing, the question was whether he should be articled to 
 his father or placed elsewhere. There was a good deal to 
 be said pro and con, and among the cons was the unfor- 
 tunate schism, not to say yawning gulf, between the two 
 partners. But even as to that, I am afraid that Mr. 
 Debenham chuckled to himself as he referred to a clause 
 in the partnership agreement which allowed either partner 
 to receive any son as an articled clerk. The thought that 
 he could do it whether Mr. Pickering liked it or not was 
 fragrant to him, as also was the reflection that Pickering, 
 as it happened, had no son and could not therefore exer- 
 cise a similar privilege. To do him only justice, he did 
 also consider Hubert's interests, and whether it would be 
 to his disadvantage to come, as it were, into the middle of 
 a feud, but he decided that if he kept the lad close under 
 his own eye and confined him to his own work, there was
 
 72 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 
 
 no need for him to see anything of rickcring, and that it 
 really, as far as his son was concerned, would be much as 
 if there was no such being as the hated Pickering in the 
 world. All this he carefully explained to Hubert, who 
 implicitly trusted his father's guidance, and readily accepted 
 the idea that he would be able to steer clear of Pickering. 
 The only doubt he expressed to his mother was whether 
 he could resist punching Pickering's head when they did 
 happen to meet in the office, for I need hardly say that in 
 the minds of Mrs. Debenham and of the children too, as 
 soon as they were old enough to learn it, Debenham was 
 clearly understood to be tied in business to a monster in 
 human form. 
 
 So it was decided that Hubert should be articled to his 
 father, and one morning Sanderson entered Mr. Pickering's 
 room on a mission that made him feel as nearly nervous 
 as his calm temperament permitted. " If you please, Mr. 
 Pickering, Mr. Debenham asked me to mention that his 
 eldest son is being articled to him, and he begins his time 
 here to-morrow." 
 
 Pickering jumped up as if a squib had been let off under 
 him. 
 
 *' His son — articled — here — it's an outrage ! What on 
 earth does he mean ! Nothing will induce me to give my 
 consent. One Debenham in this office is quite enough for 
 me, and you may tell him I said so, Sanderson. Tell him, 
 please, in those very words." 
 
 He was so angry that he really did mean Sanderson to 
 go and repeat what he had said this time. But Sanderson 
 did not move. 
 
 " Mr. Debenham hoped it would be agreeable to you.
 
 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 73 
 
 sir" (Debenham had not hoped anything of the kind. I 
 am afraid he hoped the exact opposite), " but he asked me 
 just to mention that it was in the agreement." 
 
 "What agreement — God bless my soul, what agree- 
 ment?" 
 
 " I suppose he meant the partnership agreement, sir." 
 
 Pickering bounced off to a box in the room with his 
 initials on it, and unlocking it brought out the partnership 
 agreement, which he feverishly looked over. He murmured 
 half aloud as he did so : — 
 
 "Partnership terms — bankers — style of firm — accounts 
 — just and faithful in all dealings — drawings — death — dis- 
 solution — articled clerks — yes, by the Lord, he's got me — 
 the coward ! " He threw the document back into the box 
 and locked it with a vicious snap, as if he wished he had got 
 Debenham under lock and key too. 
 
 " Sanderson, my partner is legally entitled to bring his 
 brat here whether I like it or not, but you, as a tried and 
 faithful member of the staff, and, I may say, an old friend, 
 will understand what I feel when he foists on me a son of 
 his, knowing that I have no son myself to bring here, and 
 that if I could prevent it by any mortal means I would. 
 It is a scandalous act, and I feel sure you must think so, 
 though I quite understand your silence. Go to Mr. 
 Debenham, please, and say that I have received his 
 message, and that I feel I cannot object to what I regard 
 as taking a scandalous advantage of me. Tell him that I 
 request him to keep his son out of my sight, and that under 
 no circumstances is he to touch any work of mine, and that 
 if, when his son's articles expire, we are still in partnership 
 (which I don't mind telling you, Sanderson, is most unlikely),
 
 74 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 
 
 I will never consent to his remaining here, even as a clerk 
 at ^2 a week." 
 
 This last speech, unlike the first outburst before he 
 realised Debenham's rights, was not intended for con- 
 sumption except by Sanderson, but the delivery of it did 
 Pickering no end of good. 
 
 Sanderson went back to Debenham, who was awaiting 
 his return with much interest, and said that Mr. Pickering 
 felt he could not object, but thought that it would be better 
 if Mr. Debenham's son worked entirely with his own father. 
 
 Whereupon Debenham, reading between the lines of 
 Sanderson's translation, laughed aloud and said that the 
 suggestion was quite superfluous, as he would rather see his 
 son sweep a crossing than have anything to do personally 
 with Mr. Pickering in his work. 
 
 So all things were beautiful when Hubert began to serve 
 under his articles. 
 
 Hubert had been in the office some days before Picker, 
 ing saw him, and then they came across each other in the 
 outer office. They eyed each other very curiously, and 
 very much like two dogs who sniff at each other in a way 
 that may or may not portend a coming battle. Hubert 
 saw for the first time the man who had done his best to 
 make Hubert's father's life bitter, and Pickering saw the 
 son of the partner whom he detested, thrust too into the 
 office most indecently and without a semblance of consulting 
 his wishes. So there was no love to spare on either side. 
 
 Hubert was obliged to admit to himself that Pickering's 
 face, though it wore a most unpleasant expression at that 
 moment, was not by any means unattractive ; on the con- 
 trary, there was rather a frank open look about the eyes, and
 
 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 75 
 
 a suggestion at the corners that they might twinkle on 
 occasion ; the forehead was lofty, the jaw firm but not 
 heavy, and the whole face clean cut and unmistakably 
 intellectual. Hubert felt instinctively that it was the face 
 of a clever man, and it struck him with surprise that a 
 man who must have good abilities should allow Hubert's 
 father to do all the work, that being, of course, one of the 
 articles of religion to which the Debenham family had been 
 brought up. 
 
 Pickering, for his part, saw in Hubert one of the nicest- 
 looking young fellows he had ever cast eyes on. A hand- 
 some and an honest face had Hubert, He had curly golden 
 brown hair, large blue eyes, a colour that a maiden of 
 eighteen might have envied, a little moustache that was 
 just enough to be manly and not too much to take away 
 from the general appearance of youth in all its glory of high 
 spirits and unimpaired digestion, and features that were 
 regular but not the least effeminate. He was a strapping 
 young fellow too, with a fine broad pair of shoulders. He 
 was every inch a man and every inch a boy at the same time. 
 
 There was no getting over the fact that Pickering liked 
 the look of the lad. The ugly scowl on his face melted in 
 spite of himself in the sunshine of that bright young face, 
 and he caught up a letter-book and hurried away with a 
 dreadful suspicion in his mind that if he had stayed another 
 moment he might have smiled, and that for such an act of 
 criminal weakness and inconsistency he never could have 
 forgiven himself. 
 
 He was rather thoughtful that afternoon, and at dinner 
 in the evening he said abruptly to his wife, " I saw 
 Debenham's boy to-day for the first time."
 
 76 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 
 
 " Like father like son I suppose," replied Mrs. Pickering, 
 who adored her husband, and therefore regarded Debenham 
 as a disgrace to humanity. 
 
 " Hum — no — at all events not in looks I am bound to 
 say, though I don't know anything of his disposition. He's 
 a nice-looking boy, I must admit." The words "without 
 prejudice " rose to his lips as necessarily following this 
 sentence, but being in the bosom of his family he repressed 
 the qualification without which a lawyer making an 
 admission would, generally speaking, rather be carried 
 away lifeless. 
 
 Mrs. Pickering sniffed in an uncompromising sort of 
 way. Fond and dutiful wife as she was, she had not had 
 Debenham rubbed in for the last twenty years, like salt, 
 mustard, and pepper combined, as the bane and curse of 
 her lord's existence, without hating Debenham with a 
 loathing compared to which her husband's feelings were 
 amiable. " One thing we may be quite sure of," she said, 
 " whatever his looks may be, and that is that he has heard 
 nothing at home but wicked lies about you ever since he 
 was old enough to hear anything." 
 
 Generally, such a sentence would have started off Picker- 
 ing on the old but never worn-out subject for half-an-hour, 
 but he seemed out of sorts, and after moodily toying with 
 his glass for a minute or two he only said, "Yes, I 
 suppose so." 
 
 Now this little conversation had taken place in the pres- 
 ence of a third person, to wit, Violet Sybil Pickering, now 
 aged nineteen, only child of Mr. and Mrs. Pickering, and 
 the joy and pride of their lives. She was not only exceed- 
 ingly pretty, but also a very sweet amiable girl, and the
 
 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 77 
 
 Debenham topic always grated on her, for it invariably 
 made her father and therefore her mother fret and fume, 
 and use hard words that never seemed to do the least good 
 to them or anybody else, and being accustomed to have 
 her own way with them in all things (she would have been 
 utterly spoilt if it had not fortunately been, as it was, a 
 good and loving way) she had done everything in her 
 power to stop the subject at home. She had been known 
 to put her pretty little hand over her father's mouth, and 
 tell him to be quiet, and had even instituted a system that 
 she called "Debenham forfeits," whereby a fine of one 
 shilling was imposed on the offending parent every time 
 the name was mentioned, and the proceeds distributed 
 in certain charitable ways. 
 
 On the present occasion Violet did not attempt to veto 
 the subject, and even forgot to collect a shilling from each 
 parent. On the contrary, she chimed in, " Well, mamma, 
 whatever he has been told he is in the office now, and can 
 see the truth for himself, and I am sure he will like papa, 
 whatever he has been brought up to believe." 
 
 " He won't have any chance of liking or disliking me 
 personally, Violet, for he is to work, of course, entirely 
 with his father, and I shall very seldom see him, and never 
 speak to him when I do." 
 
 "But if he's nice, papa, why shouldn't you speak to 
 him ? " 
 
 "Violet, Violet," broke in her mother, "are you for- 
 getting all that your father has suffered from that man ? Is 
 it likely that he can have any friendly feeling towards the 
 son, especially considering the way that the boy has been 
 forced into the office ? "
 
 78 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 
 
 " All I know, mamma, is that papa is nice, and from what 
 he says this young Debenham may be nice too, and I don't 
 see why they should not be friendly to each other. We are 
 not living in that place — what is it ? — Corsica, where if two 
 families quarrel they all kill each other in every succes- 
 sive generation long after they have forgotten what it was 
 about." 
 
 Mrs. Pickering looked up in the direction of the ceiling 
 in mild deprecation of these heretical sentiments. Mr. 
 Pickering reached out a hand in which his beloved daughter 
 immediately put hers, but he said nothing. He was indeed 
 strangely silent and absent-minded that evening. 
 
 On the same evening Hubert said to his father as they 
 went home together, " I say, father, I ran across Mr. 
 Pickering in the office to-day." 
 
 "Was he rude to you?" blazed out Debenham hotly, 
 every paternal instinct on the alert. 
 
 " Not at all. He said nothing, and, of course, I said 
 nothing. He looked pretty black I thought when he 
 caught sight of me, and I suppose I didn't look very 
 amiable either, but he didn't seem to keep it up, and 
 when he bolted off like a rabbit, I thought he was going to 
 smile or say something." 
 
 " He smile at a son of mine ! You don't know what 
 you're talking about, my boy." 
 
 "He's got rather a clever face, hasn't he, father — looks as 
 if he could do good work if he tried. Pity he doesn't." 
 
 Mr. Debenham abruptly changed the conversation. The 
 truth was that he was strangely disturbed by this ingenuous 
 observation. It seemed to take him between wind and 
 water. For all these years he had persuaded himself, told
 
 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 79 
 
 his wife, told his children, told his most intimate friends 
 that he did all the work, and that if it were not for him the 
 business would fall to pieces, and that Pickering was a 
 vampire who sucked half the profits, and was no good 
 to the firm whatever. And now his own son, on seeing 
 Pickering for the first time, pronounced him to be clever 
 looking. But that was not all, it was only a very little bit 
 of the reason for his feeling agitated in mind. His son 
 took it as a matter of course at present that Pickering did 
 nothing. But he would soon get to know more about the 
 office, and however closely associated with his father's per- 
 sonal work, he must necessarily form an opinion for himself 
 before long as to the conduct of the firm's business as a 
 whole. Would he then share his father's estimate of the 
 relative value of the services of the two partners ? Would 
 he be loyal to the Debenham traditions and grievances, or 
 would he find virtues in Pickering, and perhaps even con- 
 sider him the better man of the two ? Would he — here 
 was where the shoe was really pinching tight — would he 
 perhaps think that his father had been hugging imaginary 
 wrongs and doing injustice all these years to his partner, 
 and would he despise him for doing it? Deep down in 
 Debenham's heart of hearts, buried under a tangled growth 
 of jealousy, bitterness, envyings, strife, self-deception, and 
 other weeds, was the knowledge that Pickering was not a 
 fool, was not an idle man, but a hard worker, and in real, 
 sober, honest truth did his fair share of labour, and did it 
 well. Hubert quite unconsciously had awakened in his 
 father's breast doubts that made him very uncomfortable 
 indeed, uncomfortable above all, because his own son, 
 whom he loved, suddenly seemed to him to be getting
 
 8o THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 
 
 ready to play the part of an accuser. He had thought of 
 many things before deciding to bring him into the office, 
 but never of this. 
 
 From the necessity of the case Pickering was bound 
 now and again to come across his partner's son, and, steel 
 himself as he would, the lad grew upon him more every 
 time he caught sight of his bright winning face, and every 
 time he found it more difficult not to smile, and every 
 time too Hubert found it more difficult to regard him in 
 the light of a fiend. The plain truth was that th«y were 
 attracted to each other, and that was all about it. At last 
 a smile forced its way through, and Hubert responded to 
 it with another, and they got to smile regularly. Then 
 Pickering nodded to Hubert, because his head would have 
 it so whether he liked it or not, and Hubert gave back a 
 nice friendly little half bow — not a nod, but something 
 more respectful. 
 
 And then a great thing happened. They spoke. Picker- 
 ing in a flurried sort of way, as if he were doing something 
 wrong, asked Hubert if he had seen Letter-Book 39, and 
 Hubert said he had not, but would find it in a minute, 
 and darting off he ravaged the office till he got it, and as 
 Pickering had fled in the meantime actually took the book 
 into that villain's own room. Pickering coloured visibly, 
 whether with pleasure or embarrassment or both history 
 does not tell, as he thanked him. 
 
 Hubert had said nothing more to his father about Picker- 
 ing until now, and the latter had avoided the subject 
 himself, having upon him constantly the same feeling that 
 his son might see Pickering with very different eyes to his 
 own. But Hubert felt it right to mention that he had
 
 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 8i 
 
 actually exchanged civil words with the enemy, and he 
 told his father what had occurred, adding in perfect sim- 
 plicity, " He seems as if he wished to be civil to me, father, 
 and I hope you don't mind my being civil too, as, of 
 course, it's much more pleasant than for him and me to be 
 scowling at each other ; but if you don't think it's quite 
 straight to you of course I will shut him up." 
 
 The answer was rather a long time coming, and came 
 slowly then, and as it seemed with difficulty. " I don't 
 mind at all, Hubert. I don't expect or wish you to see 
 with my eyes, and if my partner goes out of his way to be 
 civil to you by all means respond to his kindness. He 
 and I have been at variance, as you know, for a great many 
 years, but there is no reason why you should be involved 
 in the differences — and perhaps — we have neither of us 
 been altogether just in judging of each other." These last 
 words came very slowly indeed. And then the father 
 relapsed into a brown study. 
 
 So Pickering and Hubert came to nod and speak to 
 each other, and one day Pickering actually asked him, if 
 disengaged, to do a little piece of work for him, and praised 
 him when he had done it. 
 
 A curious change came over the partners themselves at 
 
 this point. Sanderson's occupation as go-between still 
 
 continued, but it took quite a different form. Instead of 
 
 translating more or less violent abuse into polite but always 
 
 negative language, he was now the medium through which 
 
 communications of quite a different nature passed. If 
 
 Pickering made a suggestion Debenham would politely 
 
 agree to it, and vice versd. Sanderson was greatly puzzled, 
 
 as well he might be, and said to himself, for he never 
 
 F
 
 82 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 
 
 spoke on such a subject to any one else, that it was a 
 queer start, and he wondered if, after all these years, they 
 were coming to their senses. 
 
 It happened on very rare occasions and as a special treat 
 that Violet Pickering came to the office in the family 
 carriage for her father at a rather earlier hour than his 
 usual time of leaving for the day, and it was understood 
 that on these occasions he was generally carried off to the 
 West End and made to stand treat in divers ways, he 
 pretending to grumble all the time and enjoying his 
 daughter's pleasure hugely. 
 
 One of these events occurred after Hubert had been at 
 the office a few months. To his great surprise an exceed- 
 ingly pretty girl (well dressed too, though she would have 
 looked bewitching in sackcloth) walked into the outer 
 office, where he happened to be at the time, and also 
 happened at the moment by an accident to be alone. 
 
 The young lady knew most of the clerks by sight, and 
 immediately she set eyes — such big grey eyes — on a strange 
 and particularly handsome young man she knew instinc- 
 tively who it was, and became so confused that she could 
 not utter a word. Hubert, who had no idea who she was, 
 felt confused also from a different cause, but he managed 
 to ask her whom she wished to see and to offer her a 
 chair. 
 
 " I've called for papa, thank you — I'll — I'll — wait till one 
 of the clerks comes in." 
 
 Then it dawned on Hubert who she was, and other 
 feelings dawned on him at the same moment. She was a 
 divinity, he thought, nothing less. 
 
 *' I think I am speaking to Miss Pickering," he said, all
 
 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 83 
 
 in a fluster, and with a heart beating twenty to the dozen. 
 " Pray allow me to tell your father you're here. Would 
 you like to see the paper ? " This last sentence was 
 merely the outward and visible expression of a feverish 
 desire to do some service to the beautiful vision before 
 him, for in fact the only paper kept on the premises was a 
 legal periodical not possessing maddening interest to the 
 ordinary reader. 
 
 " No, thank you. You're very kind, but please don't 
 trouble to tell my father. I can wait here quite well." 
 
 But he must trouble, he would trouble, he intended to 
 trouble, and he meant to do it too before any other clerk 
 came in to take the privilege out of his hands, which 
 must happen in a moment, so off he dashed to Mr. 
 Pickering's room. 
 
 *' Mr. Pickering, your daughter has just come, and she's 
 in the outer office waiting. May I show her in ? " 
 
 " It's very kind of you, Debenham, but I really must not 
 let you act as conductor to my daughter. I will come out 
 to her myself," and before Hubert could say more Pickering 
 hurried out to his daughter followed by Hubert, and then 
 took her back into his room while he finished one or two 
 matters before going off with her. 
 
 Hubert lingered about the outer ofifice meanwhile. I 
 am afraid he made a pretence of violently looking up some- 
 thing till Mr. Pickering came out with his daughter and 
 when that event happened Hubert blushed violently, and 
 felt as if an angel were passing through the very matter-of- 
 fact office of Paterson, Pickering, and Debenham. But, un- 
 fortunately, the angel only did pass through with her father, 
 who nodded kindly to Hubert, and when she had vanished
 
 84 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 
 
 it seemed to Hubert as if the whole place had suddenly 
 grown shabby and disgusting. The clerks who had been 
 out of the room had returned, and as Hubert slowly made 
 for the room in which he sat, with a dreadful sinking inside 
 him, he heard one of them say to another, " Isn't she 
 scrumptious ? " He felt it would be a relief to brain that 
 impious clerk. 
 
 "Well, Violet," said her father as they drove away, 
 " you have seen young Debenham. Do you like the looks 
 of him or not ? " 
 
 " Ye-es, papa, I think he is good-looking." 
 
 " You don't seem quite sure about it." 
 
 " Oh yes ! " she said hurriedly, " I am quite sure." 
 
 " Was he civil to you ? " 
 
 " Yes, very civil indeed — in fact, very nice ; but, of course, 
 he only said a few words." Was there just the faintest 
 tinge of unconscious regret that there had not been a 
 chance of his saying more words ? 
 
 " I like the lad. I can't help it. I only wish his father 
 were like him." 
 
 The addition of those last words to any kindly reference 
 to Hubert was a matter of course. Without them Pickering 
 would have been ashamed of owning to a liking for Hubert. 
 He was rather ashamed of it as it was. But, somehow, they 
 did not come with the old air of savage, one-sided, blind 
 prejudice and conviction. They were said more as if he 
 were discharging a duty. 
 
 Then Violet said something so daring that, with all her 
 confidence in her father's unfailing indulgence, she trembled 
 a little as she said it, and spoke very timidly, " Don't you 
 think, papa, that perhaps — only perhaps — Mr. Deben' am
 
 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 85 
 
 has some good in him after all ? You know what evil 
 feelings he has about you, and I expect he thinks you ever 
 so wicked, when," — she faltered a little, and put her two 
 little hands on his arm in the very middle of Regent 
 Street, "when you are the best and kindest old dear in 
 the world ! " 
 
 Pickering oddly enough said nothing at all — not a word. 
 
 Solicitors never shed tears. It is not allowed by the 
 Rules of Court. When Pickering put his handkerchief to 
 his left eye it must have been to get a fly out, and when 
 he blew his nose a moment afterwards he must have had 
 symptoms of a cold in the head. I say must, because 
 there is no other possible hypothesis that I can admit for 
 a moment. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE BRIDGE THAT SPANNED IT 
 
 Alas for poor Hubert ! In those few minutes the fatal 
 arrow had been shot, and, waking or sleeping — but there 
 was not much sleeping — the whole world to him was Violet 
 Pickering. What would he not give to see her again — but 
 what possible chance had he of doing so ? The two fathers 
 at deadly enmity — the two families therefore at opposite 
 poles. His only chance would be that when she came 
 to the office again, perhaps months hence, he might — or 
 might not — see her, and most likely two clerks at least 
 would be looking on if he did. How could he live on the 
 slender hope of such a momentary sight of her as that? 
 How could he live at all for that matter ? Would not early
 
 86 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 
 
 death be a decided relief? Then why was he so horribly 
 strong and well that he could scarcely hope to secure 
 oblivion in the silent tomb? Should he hang about the 
 Pickering abode, disguised as a sailor for instance, and try 
 to waylay her, and then disclose himself, and tell her that 
 he really could not help it and must speak to her or perish ? 
 No, he could not do such a caddish thing as that. Well, 
 then, what could he do? Nothing, absolutely nothing. 
 That sweet angel was as far removed from his sight, his 
 hopes, his life as if she literally were an angel and had 
 wings, and rather preferred living next door to one of the 
 most distant stars than otherwise. 
 
 From the foregoing observations it will have been pos- 
 sibly inferred that Hubert had fallen desperately in love at 
 first sight, and so have I often, dear reader, and so have 
 you, I daresay, but it never came to anything in my case, 
 and I only hope you have got on better. 
 
 Now desperate cases require desperate remedies, and 
 after enduring an amount of suffering that was cruel to 
 bear, and exhibiting at home and abroad a condition of 
 mind that made folks wonder what on earth was the 
 matter with him, and his father in particular to become 
 quite anxious, Hubert came to a resolve of supreme 
 importance. 
 
 One evening as he and his father were on the way home 
 from the ofifice, Hubert began, with a large lump in his 
 throat, as follows : " Father, Mr. Pickering has been most 
 awfully kind to me since I came to the office." 
 
 His father was genuinely pleased to hear it and said so. 
 
 " I was wondering whether it would be a civil thing if — 
 if — I were just to call there."
 
 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 87 
 
 "Good heavens, what an idea, Hubert ! It's not to be 
 thought of for a moment. You may be sure that Mrs. 
 Pickering and the daughter hate us Hke poison, and you 
 would expose yourself to a most humiliating snub." 
 
 This was a fair beetle-crusher, but Hubert was braced up 
 to do or die, and faced the music like a man. 
 
 " Oh ! but, father, of course I shouldn't go without asking 
 Mr. Pickering if it would be agreeable to them. I — I — 
 just happened to see Miss Pickering in the office some days 
 ago for a moment accidentally, and she must have known 
 who I was, and she wasn't — I mean she was " 
 
 " My dear boy," interrupted Debenham, " being a lady 
 at all events she couldn't very well say anything abusive to 
 you in the office, but it's a totally different pair of shoes 
 when you come to put yourself at their mercy by going to 
 their own house ; and if you ask Pickering, the answer will 
 only be that it wouldn't be at all agreeable, but very much 
 the reverse, and then it will be very difficult for you to be 
 on friendly terms with him in the office afterwards. Don't 
 think of it, Hubert." 
 
 Beetle-crusher No. 2. But still Hubert persisted, and 
 gained his point. His father was very much averse to it, 
 but was at last induced to say that, if Hubert, against his 
 advice, was prepared to take the risk of getting a flat 
 refusal from Pickering, he should not forbid him to make 
 the attempt. 
 
 So Hubert tackled Pickering in his room next day, with 
 a much bigger lump in his throat. " Mr. Pickering, I hope 
 you won't think it a very great liberty, but I wanted just to 
 ask you if I might come and call on you — and — and the 
 ladies some Saturday or Sunday afternoon. You have
 
 88 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 
 
 been so kind to me since I have been here, and it would 
 be a great pleasure to me if I might come and — and, in fact, 
 just call." 
 
 Pickering, mightily astonished, looked into the lad's 
 blushing, confused, but earnest face, that he had grown to 
 like so much. He paused a few moments, embarrassed by 
 the obvious awkwardness of being on friendly social terms 
 with the son of his arch-enemy Debenham, but his liking 
 for the young man, a certain invisible change that had been 
 going on lately in his own habit of thought about his 
 partner, and the remembrance of the chord that Violet had 
 touched the other day when they were out together, all 
 combined to fight for Hubert. 
 
 " Debenham, I can't help confessing that you take me 
 by surprise, and there are reasons, regrettable and painful 
 reasons, that make it difficult for me to answer you. But 
 if you are able to assure me that in coming to my house 
 you would not be disregarding your father's commands or 
 even his wishes, I shall be very glad to see you, and I am 
 sure can answer for my wife and daughter as well. It 
 would be even more difficult than it is for me to say yes 
 on these conditions if I did not Hke you, Debenham, but 
 frankly I do." He held out his hand very kindly as he said 
 this, and as Hubert took it he felt so overjoyed by his 
 success that on very slight provocation he would have 
 executed a J>as seul there and then. He assured Mr. 
 Pickering that his father had no objection whatever, and 
 added, with a little hesitation of manner, that his father's 
 only fear had been that Mr. Pickering might not like it. 
 *' Well, you will be able to tell him that he need not have 
 been afraid," said Mr. Pickering, with a pleasant smile.
 
 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 89 
 
 " Come next Saturday afternoon if not better engaged." 
 Better engaged, indeed ! 
 
 Hubert recounted to his father that evening all that had 
 passed, not omitting Pickering's closing words and the 
 smile that accompanied them. He had noticed that of 
 late his father had rarely mentioned Pickering's name, and 
 never in connection with any grievance or fresh dispute ; 
 and notwithstanding the selfish pre-occupation for which 
 the condition, usually and absurdly described, for want of a 
 better term, as being in love, is notorious, it had dawned 
 upon him that he might possibly be the means of bringing 
 about peace between the two partners ; and he fancied too 
 that Pickering's last words might have been intended, 
 if not as a whole olive branch at least as a tiny twig from 
 off it. 
 
 Would Saturday afternoon ever come ? Of course it 
 would and did, and it always does, but I know of few things 
 in life stranger than the enormous difference in the length 
 of the same measurement of time to different people. If 
 we look backward a good deal and forward very little (that 
 is my case) it flies. If we look backward very little, and 
 all our thoughts are concentrated on some particular event 
 to come, it lags and drags and seems to us to stand still. 
 And yet, youthful reader, the same weeks, days and hours 
 that refuse to move on for you are racing past me so fast 
 that I can hardly count them, and what is more I can't 
 exchange with you — I can't even offer to hand you one 
 week of time going at my rate in exchange for a week 
 going at yours. But a truce to moralising, and let us 
 come to the Saturday afternoon call. 
 
 There was a lot of fluttering in various bosoms around
 
 go THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 
 
 that call. The Debenham family in general were in a 
 flutter because it was such an extraordinary event, such an 
 earthquake of family traditions and funereal pyre of shib- 
 boleths. Hubert himself was in a flutter, principally for 
 reasons that nobody knew anything about, though he too 
 was excited also from a family point of view. The 
 Pickerings were in a flutter for exactly the same reasons 
 as the Debenhams ; and Violet personally, well I don't 
 say that she had not occasionally found herself thinking 
 of the handsome lad that her father — yes, her father — liked, 
 but of course only because her father did like him, and not 
 for any other reason whatsoever, certainly not. I don't 
 say that when she heard of his coming she did not feel 
 excited and glad, because she did. It showed that he liked 
 her dear father so much that he wished to know him 
 better, as indeed he well might, and that was very nice of 
 him, and so it made her feel glad he was coming. There 
 was no other reason. How could there be ? 
 
 So he came, and when he rang the bell he did not know 
 where his heart was, but he rather thought it had got loose 
 somehow and was in his mouth. And when the door 
 opened and he was shown in, he asked himself whether 
 he was walking on his legs or the other way up. But 
 when he got into the drawing-room and saw Mr. and Mrs. 
 Pickering and Violet, at least he seemed to see at first bits 
 of Mr. and Mrs. Pickering and an entrancing heavenly 
 vision in pink that turned out to be Violet, then he pulled 
 himself together, and tried to say how glad he was to see 
 them and how kind it was of them to let him come. 
 
 Mrs. Pickering had intended in her own mind to be a 
 little stiff at first and unbend gradually, and had in fact had
 
 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 91 
 
 a sort of mental dress rehearsal, but as she said afterwards 
 there was no withstanding that boy, and before he had 
 been there a quarter of an hour she found herself talking 
 to him as if they were old friends. Mr. Pickering, too, did 
 everything in his power to make Hubert feel at home, and 
 the only silent member of the family was Violet, who did 
 not say much, and said what she did say in rather a shy 
 sort of way. Indeed, her mother was rather concerned 
 about it, and spoke to her afterwards. She reminded 
 Violet that she, Violet, had always tried to make her 
 father and mother feel less bitter about Mr. Debenham. 
 
 "And now," she said, "now that your father is noble 
 enough to overlook all the bitter things he has suffered 
 from the father, and to heap coals of fire on his head by 
 showing such kindness to the son, you seemed to shrink 
 back, dear, as if you had no welcome for him." 
 
 " I am very sorry you thought so, mamma ; I did not 
 mean to be unkind, indeed, I didn't." 
 
 Oh, foolish, foolish Mrs. Pickering ! Had you no eyes 
 to see how Violet's face was suffused with a lovely crimson 
 colour when Hubert looked at her, as he very often did, 
 or spoke to her as he did whenever he had a chance ? 
 Had you no ears to hear the little tremble in her own voice 
 when she answered him? Had you no instinct to guess 
 that the hesitation, the silence, the timidity, were only 
 heralds of the dawn of deeper feelings that would come 
 to mean a million times more to Hubert than all the kind- 
 ness that you could heap upon him, however gratefully 
 and gladly accepted? Were you never young, Mrs. 
 Pickering, or had your senses only grown dim after so 
 many years of satisfied affection?
 
 92 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 
 
 Hubert stayed a long time and had tea with the family, 
 and played a game of billiards with Mr. Pickering, at which 
 Violet shyly officiated as marker. He played very well, 
 and Mr. Pickering played very badly ; but do you think 
 he allowed himself to beat him hollow, or even to win ? 
 Not at all. The artful young man just toyed with the 
 game, and Mr. Pickering, who won by two points on more 
 than sufferance — positive unbridled indulgence — was 
 delighted with himself beyond measure. 
 
 At last he had no excuse for staying any longer and 
 was fain to go. Mr. and Mrs. Pickering said many kind 
 words at parting, and begged him to come and dine with 
 them some evening soon, which he eagerly said he should 
 be delighted to do. When it came to Violet's turn to say 
 good-bye to him she only said "good-bye," nothing more, 
 as he took her hand and held it a moment or two longer 
 than was absolutely necessary in the interests of politeness. 
 But it is astonishing what a world of meaning can con- 
 sciously or unconsciously be put into the shortest and 
 simplest words, backed up by a pair of beautiful grey eyes. 
 Anyhow, Violet's simple little good-bye was carried away 
 by Hubert as a treasure beyond price, and he walked home 
 on air. I only walk on air myself now when I have in 
 digestion and dream, but that is neither here nor there. 
 
 There were only two thorns in the rose. One was that 
 they had not mentioned a day for his coming to dinner. 
 Would it be a few days, or weeks, or even months hence ? 
 Would Mr. and Mrs. Pickering — oh, torture! — possibly 
 forget it altogether, or not have really meant it, and only 
 said it out of politeness ? The bare thought of such a 
 thing almost brought back a momentary desire for the
 
 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 93 
 
 silent tomb ; but Hubert was naturally of a cheerful dis- 
 position, and he fought against these tragic possibilities, 
 determined to hope that before long the invitation would 
 be received. The other thorn was the recollection of 
 having seen at the Pickerings' abode no less than three 
 different photograi)hs of a fine handsome man in uniform 
 (with several medals on his breast in one of them too), 
 older certainly a good deal than Violet, but still in the 
 prime of life. He could not help thinking now and again 
 of the dreadful possibility that that swaggering military 
 officer might have captured Violet's heart before he, 
 Hubert, had realised that if he could not possess it himself 
 life must be to him a hideous grey waste, with a perpetual 
 yellow fog thrown in. As a matter of fact, the officer in 
 question was a younger brother of Mrs. Pickering, and 
 thereiore within the degrees of affinity prohibited according 
 to the Prayer-Book, but then you see Hubert did not know 
 that then, and love generally manufactures torments for 
 its victims as well as fairy bowers, especially in its early 
 stages. 
 
 He had not long to wait for the invitation for which 
 he was ravenously hungering. Before many days Mr. 
 Pickering said to him one morning, " You promised to 
 come and dine with us one evening, Debenham " (what 
 a very delicate and jolly way of putting it, thought 
 Hubert), "will you come home with me next Thursday 
 evening, if you are at liberty. You might go straight 
 from here with me, and don't trouble to bring any dress 
 clothes, as we shall be quite by ourselves." 
 
 To record Hubert's answer is superfluous. It is more 
 to the point to observe that when Hubert told his father
 
 94 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 
 
 of the invitation, the latter said, " How very kind of 
 Pickering ; please tell him that I said so." These were 
 the first words of good feeling towards his partner that 
 Debenham had uttered for many, many years. Hubert 
 heard them with joy and thankfulness in his heart. It 
 came home to him again that perhaps the ice was breaking 
 at last, and that this was the answer to Pickering's twig 
 of olive. Young as he was, he had already been long 
 enough in the office to see that these two men had come 
 to hate each other for no earthly reason ; that they were 
 both very able, both very hard-working, both equally 
 necessary to the prosperity of the firm, both men of mas- 
 terful disposition, but possessing nevertheless very kind 
 and tender hearts ; both of them most affectionate hus- 
 bands and fathers, both good and true men. He had 
 seen, too, that the fact of Mr. Pickering having taken 
 so kindly to him had deeply touched his own father. 
 And if — and if — beyond all this Violet could ever like 
 him enough to — well, in fact, to Hke him very much indeed, 
 might not that be the blessed means of bringing about 
 reconciliation, to say nothing of his being thereby also 
 made the happiest young man on the face of the earth. 
 Every accepted lover tells himself, and also tells the young 
 woman who has accepted him that he is the happiest man 
 in the world, and yet there can only be one person who 
 is actually f/ie happiest man living. Can you reconcile 
 the contradiction, dear reader ? I can't for the life of me, 
 and yet I have said the same thing myself, and meant 
 it too, and I will be sworn that you have said it once at 
 least, though whether you also meant it is not for me 
 to say.
 
 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 95 
 
 All this passed through Hubert's mind on receiving his 
 father's message for Mr. Pickering ; but he pulled up with 
 the sudden remembrance that Violet had only seen him 
 twice, and he thought that after all she might not like 
 him very much — not as much as he wanted by yards — 
 and then there was that military brute's portrait, which 
 might mean horrible things, and altogether that he was 
 galloping too fast. So he had a cold fit for a short time, 
 till he fixed his thoughts on next Thursday evening, and 
 then the good steed Hope was off again. 
 
 I must not weary the reader by describing too minutely 
 the stages of Hubert's progress in the good books of Mr. 
 and Mrs. Pickering. He dined at their house, he called 
 there, he went about with them, he even induced them 
 once, though not till after much persuasion, to have a little 
 dinner with him at a restaurant and go to the theatre after- 
 wards as his guests, and spent a perceptible slice of his 
 quarter's allowance in the entertainment, and thought it 
 cheap at that. Violet was of the party, I might mention, 
 and when the expenses were weighed in the scales against 
 her presence, she, if I may say so, went down with a bump 
 on one side and up went the paltry money on the other. 
 
 Neither must I tell — and indeed the shades were too 
 delicate for any pen to record them — how Hubert crept 
 into Violet's little fluttering heart until he filled her 
 thoughts, her hopes, her life. Nothing had been said, 
 but the Pickerings saw what was coming now. The 
 Debenhams saw it also. Both families would indeed have 
 been purblind otherwise. The ice of years was cracking 
 in all directions, and each one waited nervously for some 
 decisive moment.
 
 96 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 
 
 It came from Hubert. He told his father — what was 
 indeed superfluous information — that his affections were 
 fixed unalterably on Violet Pickering, and asked whether, 
 if Mr. Pickering's consent were obtained, and if he found 
 that Violet (as he blushingly said he thought possible) 
 cared for him, the wish of his heart might be granted so 
 far as his own father was concerned. 
 
 Mr. Debenham was behind his last refuge. One by one 
 his defences had been captured by the forces of kindness, 
 love, and charity that had been fighting against him of 
 late, and this really was the very last stand. "You see, 
 Hubert, my boy, much as I have your happiness at heart 
 there is a great difficulty in the way. Your being on friendly 
 terms with the Pickerings is one thing, and even that, as 
 you know, was not an easy matter for me to accept. But 
 as it is impossible — I fear quite impossible — for my partner 
 and myself ever to be on friendly terms " 
 
 " Is it, father ? " broke in Hubert impetuously ; " is it 
 impossible? He doesn't really know what you are, father, 
 and, forgive me for saying it, but you don't, indeed, indeed 
 you don't really know him. If you only did know each 
 other it might be so different." 
 
 A troubled look came into Mr. Debenham's face. He 
 felt very much as if he were on trial before his own son 
 and not coming out gloriously. But he hung on. 
 
 " I quite understand your feeling about my partner, 
 Hubert, and I don't wish to alter it in the least. I can 
 see that in every way it is for your good that he should be 
 on good terms with you, and I gladly recognise his kind- 
 ness to you. But what I was going to say was that, 
 although that was all quite right, a marriage between mem-
 
 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 97 
 
 bers of the two families would under the circumstances be 
 very — well, in fact, can't you see how awkward it would be ? 
 Pickering and I would have to pretend to be grinning at 
 each other on the wedding-day, and your mother would 
 be obliged to speak to Mrs. Pickering, and — and — other 
 things too." 
 
 The finish was distinctly lame and half-hearted. Hubert, 
 who did not see the least awkwardness about it, battered 
 away for all he was worth, as the youth of the present day 
 are wont to express it, at the failing resistance of his father. 
 And then Mr. Debenham found a briUiant way of escape 
 from a position that was opposed to his great affection for 
 his son, to his instinctive sense of what was the true and 
 right thing to do, and to his secret inner consciousness 
 that he did not now really hate Pickering a bit. 
 
 " Hubert, I am most anxious to do anything in my power 
 to make my children happy, and it hurts me to oppose you 
 in this matter. It is impossible for you to enter into my 
 feelings, but it is too much, indeed it is, to ask my consent 
 to your speaking to Mr. Pickering. But if you were to 
 speak to him all the same, and he said ' Yes,' and then his 
 daughter said ' Yes,' and then you came and asked me, well, 
 I don't know what I might say." With which triumphant 
 vindication of his own consistency Debenham was so pleased 
 that he smiled all over his face. 
 
 Hubert tried not to smile, but he couldn't help it, be- 
 cause he was so exceedingly delighted, so he smiled too 
 and then he laughed, and his father laughed, until between 
 them they would have made the welkin ring if there had 
 been any welkin in those parts. 
 
 Then came the interview with Mr. Pickering.
 
 98 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 
 
 " I have come to tell you something, Mr. Pickering, that 
 I hope won't make you very angry with me. I loved your 
 daughter from the first moment I saw her, and I have gone 
 on loving her most awfully ever since, and I have come to 
 ask you to let me ask her if she will care for me too." 
 
 " You haven't said anything to her, Debenham ? " inter- 
 posed Pickering a little sharply. 
 
 "No, sir. Not a word, on my honour." 
 
 "And you have no idea whether she is aware of your 
 feelings, or whether she returns them." There was a sus- 
 picion of a smile round Mr. Pickering's mouth at this 
 point. 
 
 " I think, sir, she must know about me without my 
 telling her, but I dare hardly hope that she feels as I do, 
 though she might in time if I go on loving her as I always 
 shall." 
 
 " And your father ? " 
 
 " I have told him, sir, and he knew I was going to speak 
 to you." 
 
 " Did he object ? " 
 
 " He — he didn't object, but I think he was afraid you 
 might." 
 
 "So I do." 
 
 The room swam round Hubert. Could he have heard 
 aright ? 
 
 " Did you hear me, Debenham ? I say I do object very 
 strongly." 
 
 " Do you mean it, Mr. Pickering," faltered out the un- 
 happy lad. 
 
 " Certainly. Put yourself in my place. I am the doat- 
 ing father of my only child, and all her life her mother and
 
 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 99 
 
 I have been everything to her in the world and she to us. 
 Then you come along with your blue eyes, curly hair, and 
 taking ways, and coolly ask me to let you walk off with our 
 treasure under our very noses. You ought to be ashamed 
 of yourself, but I know you are not, and that is the worst 
 part of it all." 
 
 The room had become stationary again during this 
 speech, and at the end of it Mr. Pickering held out one 
 hand and putting the other very kindly on Hubert's 
 shoulder, he went on after a moment's pause :— 
 
 " I was but jesting, my lad. No, that is not quite true, 
 Debenham, for it is hard for parents when the only child 
 goes out from the nest, to return to it often perhaps after- 
 wards but never in the same way, never with the same 
 feeling that it is home, the place where every interest is 
 centred, and where the anxious love and care of parents 
 mean everything to the child. But these changes in life 
 have to be faced, and you have not taken me quite unpre- 
 pared, because I have seen this coming, and if it were not 
 to be you I suppose it would be some other marauder. 
 You know I like you, Hubert" — he called him by his 
 Christian name for the first time, and the young man 
 flushed with pleasure to hear him say it — "and I believe 
 you would make a good husband to my child, who is very 
 dear to me, and you have my full permission to speak to 
 her. Mind, I don't answer for what she may say, whatever 
 I may guess. Let's see, to-morrow is Saturday. I am 
 going out for the afternoon with my wife, but I should not 
 wonder if you were to find Violet at home if you called." 
 
 Mr. Pickering confided to his wife that e\ening the state 
 of affairs, for which indeed she was fully prepared, but
 
 loo THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 
 
 nothing, of course, was said to Violet, though by a common 
 impulse they both made much of her — that is, even more 
 than usual, if possible, and when her father looked at 
 her he sometimes found it difificult to repress a sigh. And 
 when Saturday afternoon came and the parents were about 
 to start on their expedition (which was quite a genuine 
 engagement), Mr. Pickering said to Violet, with an air of 
 carelessness that he considered a masterpiece, but which 
 was, in fact, the most transparent piece of play-acting, and 
 would not have deceived even a marine : " I rather think 
 Hubert Debenham is coming in this afternoon, Violet, and 
 he may get here before we return. You might just stop 
 in and give him a cup of tea if you have nothing particular 
 to go out for." 
 
 Violet blushed, and her poor little heart beat quickly, 
 and she became so confused that she was obliged to look 
 anywhere except at her father as she answered in a low 
 voice, " Very well, papa." 
 
 And when Hubert came later she rang for the tea almost 
 before he was inside the room, and talked very fast about 
 being so sorry that her father and mother were out, and 
 poor blundering Hubert, thinking to come to the rescue, 
 blurted out before he realised what he was saying, " Don't 
 mention it please, your father told me they would be out," 
 which made poor Violet more confused than ever. 
 
 The advent of tea was in one sense a relief and in 
 another sense an irritation, to Hubert at all events, for 
 a man cannot propose marriage to the woman he loves 
 when a servant keeps bothering in and out with the tea- 
 kettle, and the hot water and muffins, and all the rest of 
 the adjuncts of that effeminate meal. And when the
 
 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE loi 
 
 servant had finally departed, Violet had to make believe 
 to be fearfully busy over the tea-table, and talked rather at 
 random about every and any subject except the one that 
 was making her heart beat, and painting her cheeks the 
 colour of the reddest of roses, and causing her little hands 
 to tremble so that she could hardly hand a cup to Hubert. 
 
 But he could wait no longer for his fate. He came and 
 sat close beside her, and called her Violet for the first 
 time, and told her of his great love and the hope he had 
 dared to cherish that she might care for him, and that 
 whether she cared for him or not he should always love 
 her dearly — always — but he hoped, oh ! he hoped that 
 she might love him. And he said too, that her parents 
 and his parents knew of what he felt for her, but that he 
 did not say that to influence her in the very least, but only 
 to show that he had not done anything dishonourable or 
 unfair to her in telling her what was in his heart. 
 
 Her tears had begun falling fast before he had finished, 
 and when she turned her head away and buried her face 
 in her hands, fear came upon him, but after a few moments 
 she took one of her hands from her face and held it timidly 
 towards him, and when he seized it, and then, holding it 
 still, drew her towards him, nearer, nearer, till her shapely 
 young head was nestled on his breast — when he did that 
 there was no resistance, and from that shelter, where he 
 could not see her sweet face, the modest blushing confession 
 camCj that she had loved him from the first and he was 
 all the world to her, and that she could not help crying 
 because the joy of knowing that he loved her was more 
 than she could bear.
 
 I02 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 
 
 " Sanderson, will you please say to Mr. Pickering that, 
 if perfectly convenient to him, I should like to come into 
 his room and have a word with him." As Mr. Debenham 
 said this he turned his head away and appeared indisposed 
 to meet Sanderson's eyes, which opened very wide with 
 astonishment, though he had been slightly prepared by 
 recent wonders for more to come. He departed on the 
 errand and came back in less than a minute. **Mr. 
 Pickering's compliments, and he'll be happy to see you, 
 but if it will save you trouble he will come in to you." 
 
 " Certainly not — I won't allow him." Suiting the action 
 to the word, Debenham got up hurriedly and went to his 
 partner's room. Pickering immediately rose, and they stood 
 face to face, those two clever, shrewd, experienced lawyers, 
 and high-minded men, who in every relation of life had 
 acquitted themselves well and honourably, and yet had 
 exhibited towards each other, during all these years, the 
 most bitter enmity, and denied to each other the possession 
 of one redeeming virtue. 
 
 And then a strange thing happened. Debenham held 
 out his hand and Pickering shook it heartily. And then 
 Debenham hurried out of the room. Not a single word 
 was said on either side, and I don't fancy that either of 
 them would have been able to speak if he had tried. But 
 there was a world of meaning in that handshake. It 
 meant that each of them acknowledged that during all 
 those years — never alas to be recalled ! — he had misjudged 
 and mistrusted the other, and allowed jealousy and wrath 
 to be nursed in his breast until it had become a ruthless 
 tyrant there, dominating his whole life and poisoning every 
 healthy thought and feeling so far as his partner was con-
 
 THE OLD FEUD AND THE NEW LOVE 103 
 
 cerned. It meant that their eyes had been opened to their 
 past folly and wickedness through the new love that had 
 risen up in the next generation bringing healing in its 
 wings. It meant that in future they would be fast friends. 
 It meant all that, and it brought to each of them a joyful 
 heart. 
 
 Sanderson's duties from that time were strictly limited to 
 those of cashier, and he retired from the diplomatic service 
 in which he had so greatly distinguished himself.
 
 ( 104 ) 
 
 BOBBIE JEFFRIES, BARRISTER-AT-LAW 
 
 Robert Jeffries, known to all and sundry as Bobbie 
 Jeffries, was a full-blown member of the Bar of England. 
 He had a wig and a tin canister of the approved type to 
 keep it in, a gown, and a bag with his initials on it that 
 might have contained collars and other articles about to 
 start on their way to the wash, but, as a matter of fact, very 
 seldom contained anything at all. He also had Chambers 
 in the Temple and a fifth part of a clerk. Concerning the 
 Chambers I may remark that although, according to cus- 
 tom, I use the plural it was, strictly speaking, one room of 
 small dimensions, and two other barristers like unto him- 
 self had the privilege of using it. They very seldom 
 availed themselves of it, however, for one of them played 
 in his county cricket eleven in the summer (under an 
 assumed name, but that did not alter the fact that he 
 played, though he seemed to think that it did somehow), 
 and was much taken up with other sporting duties in the 
 winter, while the other was fond of travel and not at all 
 fond of law. His fifth part of a clerk was not an aliquot 
 proportion of the clerk's body, but, to use an expression 
 dear to lawyers, "one equal undivided fifth part or share 
 of and in" the clerk's time and services. The services 
 rendered in Bobbie's case mainly took the form of going 
 to buy his usual quantity of tobacco, for I have to confess
 
 BOBBIE JEFFRIES, BARRISTER-AT-LAW 105 
 
 that his practice was infinitesimal, and his time eked out 
 by reporting law cases for some of the daily papers, doing 
 a little devilling for other barristers, preparing indices and 
 tables of cases for law books, and such-like odd jobs ; and 
 the advent of a brief, even if only marked on the back in 
 the laconic language of the Temple, " three and one," 
 signifying a fee of three guineas for his services in Court, 
 with an extra one for conferring with him before the case 
 came on, was as rare as it was welcome. Indeed, if any 
 one who knew him had been suddenly asked how Bobbie 
 Jeffries got along, he would have been puzzled to say. 
 But he did get along, and he always dressed and looked 
 like a gentleman ; he was never known to borrow money 
 from Jew or Gentile, and nobody ever heard of his being 
 in debt to anybody for anything. 
 
 If he had not been able somehow to get along, he would 
 have stuck in very deep mud. For his father had died 
 just when Bobbie was called to the bar, leaving a widow 
 and several children, of whom Bobbie was the eldest, very 
 slenderly provided for. He had made a large professional 
 income but had spent it, and, what was worse, had allowed 
 his wife and children to suppose that he was rich, and he 
 had provided lavishly for them and himself every luxury. 
 In Bobbie's case this had taken the form of indulging in 
 all kinds of outdoor sport. How such men as Mr. Jeffries 
 sleep at night I cannot imagine. Perhaps they don't. 
 When he died a very different and wholly unexpected state 
 of things had to be faced. The younger children were all 
 at educational stages, and Bobbie's mother, who was a 
 brave and sensible little woman, had quite as much as she 
 could manage to do to keep her own head and the other
 
 io6 BOBBIE JEFFRIES, BARRISTER-AT-LAW 
 
 young heads above water. So Bobbie made up his mind 
 at once that, come what might, he would be no tax upon 
 her, and he never was. Indeed, he had more than once, 
 goodness knows how, managed to send a remittance to his 
 mother, who, when his father died, made her home at a 
 provincial town where schools were good and cheap, and 
 people were not rich and did not pretend to be. 
 
 Without any fuss Bobbie had quietly dropped the various 
 sports that his soul loved and in which he greatly excelled, 
 and one inexpensive golf club represented the sum total 
 of all his extravagance in that way. Most of his friends 
 knew or guessed the reason, and all of them respected and 
 liked him the more. Indeed, nobody could help liking 
 Bobbie, with his bright face and merry laugh and quaint 
 way of saying things. He was the Mark Tapley of the 
 Temple to all who knew him, and the clerk of whom he 
 had only a fifth share would have walked barefooted to 
 the extreme end of the Old Kent Road (which is, I believe, 
 the largest measured distance from the Temple known to 
 man), if it would have served him. Perhaps there was a 
 bit of a reason for that too, not known to any one else in 
 the Chambers or out of them — a little word of manly 
 straight advice given at a critical moment when the glamour 
 of the sporting tipsters' certainties had led the youth into 
 betting on horse races with money that he could not 
 afford to lose ; a sovereign lent (and faithfully paid back) 
 to replace money given to him for another purpose and 
 used to pay his losings. Such things were not what Bobbie 
 ever talked about. He just did them. 
 
 I should like much to be able to say that Bobbie 
 Jeffries was a genius; that he needed only the oppor-
 
 BOBBIE JEFFRIES, BARRISTER-AT-LAW 107 
 
 tunity sure to come to him who waits to start fairly on the 
 race to fame and fortune ; that he was of the stamp of 
 man who rises to the highest honours at the Bar and on 
 the Bench, and when he went to bed dreamt of the Wool- 
 sack. But I am nothing if not truthful and I cannot say 
 it. At school he had never managed to do more than 
 scrape along from one form to another when superannua- 
 tion otherwise loomed imminent. It was even said that 
 he did escape superannuation once because he was such a 
 good bat, and the school could not afford to lose him. At 
 Oxford another series of scrapings began, and when it 
 came to taking his degree he only contrived to secure a 
 " Pass " with the utmost difficulty, and, it was again said, 
 not without some indulgence, granted this time because he 
 was such a popular fellow, and his influence in his College 
 had been always on the right side. Lastly, his Bar exa- 
 minations had been a sore trial to him, and more than 
 one fence had had to be taken a second time before he 
 could get over it. 
 
 If he had not been very industrious in his father's life- 
 time, it was largely due to the foolish indulgence and ex- 
 travagance which had caused the latter to bring up his 
 children on false pretences. No one could charge Bobbie 
 with idleness since then, but no one, not even his dearest 
 friends, could say that he was clever. His prospects were 
 therefore not brilliant from any point of view. 
 
 His Chambers I have said were in the Temple. His 
 abode was at No. 51 Cranley Street, Bloomsbury, where he 
 had two rooms on the third floor of one of the many 
 lodging-houses in that quarter. When he was asked by a 
 friend why on earth he lived in that forsaken part of
 
 io8 BOBBIE JEFFRIES, BARRISTBR-AT-LAW 
 
 London, he replied laconically but cheerfully, "cheap," 
 and when he was then asked how he liked it, he said, 
 "nasty." But he did not say "nasty" in a nasty way, but 
 rather as though he had been led into a witticism, and he 
 added immediately, " not half bad though. Come and 
 look me up, and mind you don't fall over anything on the 
 stairs. Maria, the servant, whom I love and who loves me, 
 is always preparing new forms of obstacle races with no 
 prizes for the winner but a barked shin." 
 
 To the landlady of No. 51, a widow, Bobbie was a terror 
 and a delight. He was a terror because he " did things " 
 that reduced her to despair, his enormities principally 
 taking the form of bringing unexpected friends into his 
 rooms at impossible culinary hours, and then descending 
 on Mrs. Davies with a request for chops and baked pota- 
 toes, followed by toasted cheese, or some other form of 
 bachelor repast suited to the combination of a healthy 
 appetite and a slender purse, but nevertheless involving the 
 need of a kitchen fire and cooking. These requests would 
 be made like a sort of charge of cavalry, for Bobbie did not 
 hesitate to go down to the basement (which no other 
 lodger had ever been known to invade), and pour out such 
 a torrent of blandishments and outrageous flattery to Mrs. 
 Davies that she did not know whether to box his ears or 
 kiss him as if he were her son. He would tell her with a 
 shameless countenance that he had brought his two friends 
 in so that they might know for once in their lives what 
 chops and toasted cheese really meant. He had told them, 
 he said, that there were no chops like hers, no toasted 
 cheese like hers, no such cook in all London, let alone 
 Bloomsbury, as she was. She couldn't, she wouldn't break
 
 BOBBIE JEFFRIES, BARRISTER-AT-LAW 109 
 
 their hearts and humiliate him by refusing him this one 
 request, though he knew the fire had been let down and the 
 kitchen tidied. Such interviews ended always by her 
 saying, "There, Mr. Bobbie Jeffries" (she had caught the 
 infection because his friends always inquired for him at 
 the door by that name), "get along with you out of my 
 kitchen, do, or I shall never get them done," and as he 
 vanished with a laugh that made the very pots and pans 
 smile in sympathy, Mrs. Davies would add, " Bless him — 
 trouble's no trouble when it pleases him." She, too, had a 
 little secret cupboard of memory, and in her case it was a 
 memory about a landlord and a threatened distress for rent 
 and breaking up of her home, and of Bobbie coming to the 
 rescue as if it were a matter of course. He was minus his 
 watch and chain for several weeks after that occurred, and 
 when she noticed it she said nothing, because she knew he 
 would not like it, but she had not been a lodging-house 
 keeper in Bloomsbury for years without knowing what that 
 meant, and she went away and had a good cry, and through 
 her tears sobbed out a widow's prayer that God would bless 
 him for his unselfish goodness to her. 
 
 As for Maria, the general servant, who was parcelled out 
 among the lodgers very much as the clerk of whom Bobbie 
 claimed a fifth was divided between several masters, but 
 did not have nearly such a good time, she also was a 
 worshipper of Bobbie, and would do anything in the world 
 for him. He gave her as little trouble as he could, because 
 he knew she had a hard life of it, but when he did anything 
 for himself that she could have done for him she was quite 
 vexed, and would scold him like a naughty child. " I 
 'spose I 'aven't got 'ands then, Mr. Bobbie Jeffries " (she
 
 no BOBBIE yEPFRIBS, BARRISTER-AT-LAW 
 
 had caught that too), " that you must go and clean your 
 brown shoes yourself, or p'raps you think I don't polish 
 'em proper. If I couldn't polish a pair of brown shoes I 
 should think it about time I went into the work'us, I 
 should, and wot do you go comin' down all them stairs for 
 to arst for things at the top of the kitchen stairs? ain't there 
 a bell, I should like to know, or arn't I quick enough to 
 answer when you ring it ? Why don't you make your bed, 
 and wash up the things, and dust the room if you wants to 
 do everything yourself and not let any one else 'ave a 
 chance? I should." 
 
 After such an oration as that Bobbie would generally 
 retaliate by throwing the tea-cosy so that it lighted in the 
 small of Maria's back as she was leaving the room, and 
 indeed this or a similar compliment she always expected 
 and received on such occasions. As she went downstairs 
 she would be heard to say to herself, " I could work my 
 bones off for 'im, that I could." It was also one of her 
 favourite confidences to the baker's man, with whom she 
 walked out on Sundays, that if it wasn't for "our third 
 floor" she would not stay in the place another month 
 though asked on bended knees. This made the baker's 
 man a little jealous of the third floor, but Maria enjoyed 
 that as lending an importance and zest to his courtship 
 that it otherwise rather lacked. 
 
 It happened that the first floor rooms and a bedroom on 
 the second floor had been vacant for some time at a certain 
 period, and Mrs. Davies' barometer had been falling in con- 
 sequence towards wet weather, otherwise tears, and she had 
 in fact shed a few on Bobbie's table one evening as she 
 stood by it telling her woes to him. He cheered her up
 
 BOBBIE JEFFRIES, BARRISTBR-AT-LAW in 
 
 as he always did, insomuch that she said when she went 
 downstairs that that Mr. Bobbie Jeffries, bless him, was as 
 good as any medicine. But just when things were looking 
 very bad, and she was vainly trying to make twice two work 
 out at six, a middle-aged gentleman, whose name turned 
 out to be Murray, accompanied by a remarkably pretty girl, 
 obviously his daughter, came and took the vacant rooms. 
 He had just come to London from abroad, and put up at 
 an hotel, and not liking the noise and ceremony of hotel 
 life, and having heard that Bloomsbury was a quiet part of 
 London (which it certainly is, whatever may be said about 
 it by sneering West-Enders), had looked about there. He 
 saw Mrs. Davies' card in the window (Bobbie called it her 
 mourning card, but she never saw the subtle joke), and 
 liking the look of the rooms and the landlady— she was 
 a good-tempered, comfortable-looking woman was Mrs. 
 Davies, and might have been an angel if she had not been 
 driven to keep lodgings — he took them. He did not even 
 ask how much the weekly rent was, and when Mrs. Davies 
 told him the figure he merely said, " All right," which, as 
 she said afterwards, took her breath away, being so very 
 unlike the ordinary run of the Bloomsbury lodger. 
 
 This important event was duly communicated to Bobbie, 
 both by Mrs. Davies and Maria, but except for his sympathy 
 with the struggling widow it did not interest him very 
 keenly at first, because lodgers came and went and made 
 no odds to him as long as they did not attempt to use a 
 piano in the first floor sitting-room, which he told Mrs. 
 Davies must have come out of the Ark and got damp there. 
 
 It will be observed that in the above paragraph I have 
 used the words " at first." They did not slip in by accident,
 
 112 BOBBIE JEFFRIES, BARRISTER-AT-LAW 
 
 they were not put in for padding, but carried a deep mean- 
 ing. Bobbie met the daughter on the stairs one day, and 
 from that moment he was very much interested in the new 
 lodgers, so much, in fact, that for a time he seemed to be 
 always going up or down the stairs for no very obvious 
 reason, unless it were in the hope of meeting the daughter 
 again. Then one evening as he came in he met the father 
 going out, and gave him a pleasant "good evening." The 
 lodger returned it civilly enough and looked him over, not 
 rudely but with a freedom that would have been embarrass- 
 ing to most people, though it did not disturb the equanimity 
 of Bobbie Jeffries. The truth was that Mrs. Davies and also 
 Maria had been singing Bobbie's praises to the daughter, 
 and the daughter told the father, and the father was dis- 
 posed to be interested in the young man. He liked the 
 look of him and told his daughter so. 
 
 Now Bobbie Jeffries was not at all the sort of young 
 man to sigh on the stairs, and look out of his window and 
 tell the stars what a beautiful and sweet-looking girl was 
 lodging on the first floor, and what he would give (if he had 
 it) to know her. Not a bit of it. He sent a message by 
 Maria to say that if the loan of any of his books would be 
 agreeable to Mr. Murray or his daughter, he begged that 
 they would look over them and take any they cared to read. 
 To this he received a suitable answer, and the very next 
 evening Mr. Murray knocked at his door, and when he 
 came in told him that he had taken him at his word, and 
 would be very pleased to look over his books as he kindly 
 offered. Bobbie, who was smoking like a river steamer at 
 the time, hoped Mr. Murray did not mind it. 
 
 " Mind it," he answered, " I'm dying for a pipe myself,
 
 BOBBIE JEFFRIES, BARRISTBR-AT-LAIV 113 
 
 but the truth is that I don't Hke to smoke my daughter 
 out with only one sitting-room between us, and so I don't 
 indulge in the house." 
 
 "Well," said Bobbie, "that's easily cured. In the first 
 place light up now, and in the second place come up to my 
 room and smoke whether I'm here or not whenever you 
 please." He pushed the tobacco and a pipe towards Mr. 
 Murray, but that old campaigner speedily extracted a pipe 
 from one pocket and a pouch of tobacco from another. 
 
 " That's heartily kind of you," he answered, evidently 
 much pleased. " It's more like the colonies where I came 
 from than the colder English ways I have seen since I arrived 
 on this side. What's your name, if I may ask ? I did catch 
 a sort of double name from the servant who brought your 
 message, but could not make out what she said except that 
 it was Mr. Bobbie Something." 
 
 Bobbie laughed. 
 
 " That's like Maria's cheek. The fact is that my 
 name is Jeffries, but Robert is my Christian name, and 
 friends who have no respect for me call me Bobbie 
 Jeffries. It's got to be so common that one name is hardly 
 ever applied to me without the other, and from hearing it 
 on the doorstep by people asking for me, and in this room 
 when they come in, Mrs. Davies and Maria have caught the 
 trick. I don't mind if they like it, and I am so used to it 
 that I don't even notice it." 
 
 They were soon smoking and talking in the greatest amity, 
 and questioning each other without any reserve or fencing on 
 either side. Bobbie would have liked the daughter to be 
 there, but he could not have everything all at once, as he 
 said to himself, and he had not made a bad start. 
 
 H
 
 114 BOBBIE JEFFRIES, BARRISTER-AT-LAW 
 
 He learnt that Mr. Murray was of English birth, but 
 had made his home in New South Wales, whither he had 
 gone very early in life to seek his fortune as a sheep farmer. 
 He did not say whether he had found it, not being at all 
 addicted evidently to tall talking. He was a widower, and 
 his elder children had married, and Rose — the one with 
 him here — was his youngest child. She had been sent to 
 England to finish her education, and he had come over for 
 the double purpose of fetching her home and again seeing 
 something of this and other European countries. They 
 had had a prolonged tour on the Continent, and had now 
 returned to London, where he wished to spend a few 
 months quietly before going back home. He had no near 
 relatives now living in England, and no friends here except 
 a few Colonials whom he ran against from time to time. 
 Rose was evidently the apple of his eye, and, as Bobbie 
 said to himself, well she might be. Such briefly was his 
 story, told simply and unreservedly between the intervals 
 permitted by his pipe. 
 
 Bobbie told Mr. Murray his own story, except that he 
 covered over his father's folly (though Mr. Murray, who 
 was a very shrewd man, saw through that easily enough), 
 and spoke of himself with great modesty. Mr. Murray 
 eyed him narrowly, for he was a close observer of 
 character. 
 
 It was a pleasant evening to both, and when Mr. Murray 
 met his daughter at breakfast next morning (she had gone 
 to bed a good long time before he had left Bobbie's rooms) 
 he told her about it, and said he liked the young man 
 very much. 
 
 An agreeable acquaintance struck up by people living
 
 BOBBIE JEFFRIES, BARRISTBR-AT-LAW 115 
 
 in the same house does not usually take long to become 
 intimate. Bobbie was soon free of the Murrays' sitting- 
 room, where smoking was not allowed, and Mr. Murray 
 frequented Bobbie's room, where it was not only allowed 
 but almost necessary in self-defence. Rose proved to be 
 as delightful as she looked — full of spirits but never vulgar, 
 affectionate to her father, easily pleased, interested in 
 everything. When Bobbie gave a state banquet in his 
 room in her honour she was as delighted as if she had 
 been asked to dine at Buckingham Palace. Maria let the 
 green peas fall all over the floor, handed round the sweet 
 sauce with the fish, because she thought it looked like 
 butter, and performed other feats that were not in the 
 programme ; but these incidents only created innocent 
 merriment, and Bobbie and Rose laughed till the room 
 almost cracked its sides in sympathy. One side, by the 
 way, was cracked already, for it was an old house. And 
 when Bobbie described to them how he had persuaded 
 Mrs. Davies to cook the special dinner for him by means 
 of a visit to the kitchen, in the course of which he was 
 afraid he had put his arm round her ample waist to back 
 up his petition, and after offering to butter the saucepans, 
 shell the peas, and peel the potatoes himself, had finally 
 been driven out with the warming-pan, even Mr. Murray, 
 who was a quiet, undemonstrative man, joined in the 
 laughter till the tears ran down his face, and he had to tell 
 Bobbie to stop. Then after dinner Rose allowed her 
 father to smoke by special permission, but Bobbie himself 
 would not light a pipe on any persuasion. And he showed 
 her photographs of his mother and his younger brothers 
 and sisters, and of himself at Oxford as one of a cricket
 
 ii6 BOBBIE JEFFRIES, BARRISTER-AT-LAW 
 
 eleven, as one of a rowing eight (one taken in the boat and 
 one out of it), as one of a group having no particular 
 significance, and merely illustrating the undergraduate 
 passion for being photographed somehow or other, as one 
 of a select dining-club, with a special coat and buttons 
 of its own, and others again of himself alone in divers 
 costumes and attitudes. She looked longest at them, and 
 said which she thought were good, and he apologised for 
 the profusion by saying with his infectious cheeriness that 
 those were his extravagant days, and that one taken every 
 ten years on the pavement in the Tottenham Court Road, 
 on specially cheap terms, would quite satisfy him now. 
 That was a great evening, and the Roman Emperor (was 
 it a Roman Emperor? — never mind, it was some very 
 large man), who lamented that he had lost a day, would 
 not have cared fourpence for that if it had finished up with 
 such an evening as Bobbie had. In fact, he would never 
 have made the priggish remark at all. 
 
 But that was only a special sample of an extra superfine 
 treat, for there were other good times I promise you. 
 Bobbie took Mr. Murray and Rose to the Temple one 
 Sunday morning and showed them all round, and con- 
 ducted them to the service in the beautiful old church, and 
 afterwards to his own chambers. They seemed to think 
 more of the church than the chambers, and Mr. Murray 
 hazarded the remark that Bobbie did not appear to have 
 much room to turn round in, while Rose murmured even 
 something that sounded very like " what a shame," when 
 she saw the very small space that Bobbie claimed for 
 his own, and the Spartan nature of the arrangements 
 generally.
 
 BOBBIE JEFFRIES, BARRISTER-AT-LAW 117 
 
 " Do tell me what's in that biscuit-box ? " she asked 
 presently. 
 
 " My wig." 
 
 " Your what ? " She looked quite scared, and her glance 
 went instantly to his curly brown hair. 
 
 He kept her in suspense for a minute while he told a 
 few transparent fibs, and then he brought out the wig and 
 hitched his gown off a peg, and put them both on for the 
 edification of Rose and her father. 
 
 "A custom so ancient that I don't personally remember 
 its being established," said Bobbie, " ordains that I have 
 to put on this wig and gown when I address the Court, 
 which opportunity does not occur so frequently as my soul 
 could desire or my merits justify. In fact, I may say about 
 once a quarter." 
 
 She said impetuously that it seemed wicked to put that 
 coarse, bobbly, white thing over such a good head of hair, 
 and then it suddenly struck her that the remark was 
 forward, not to say bold, and she coloured up and began 
 to talk hard about something else. 
 
 It was delightful to see her peeping and peering about. 
 Bobbie took them into one room in the Chambers, which 
 was occupied by a barrister in really large practice, and 
 pointed to the row of briefs on his table, and, with a little 
 sigh, at the fees noted on them. " He does make piles 
 of money, I can tell you," he remarked, with the awe that 
 even the most impudent young barrister has for his seniors 
 in large practice. 
 
 " Why don't people send these things to you as well ? " 
 said Rose, with a touch of indignation on his account that 
 was balm to his soul.
 
 ii8 BOBBIE JEFFRIES, BARRISTER-AT-LAW 
 
 " Well, the real fact is," he replied, " that for one thing 
 I have no influence to back me except that a few old 
 college friends put a brief in my way now and then and 
 chance my ruining the case. And another thing is that 
 Blazer is tremendously clever, and I don't mind telling you 
 that I am not." 
 
 The Chambers next day seemed a different place to 
 Bobbie, and if you can't guess why, reader, I am not going 
 to tell you, and that is all about it. 
 
 The friendship thus begun soon ripened to something 
 warmer between these two young people. There came to 
 each of them the indefinable sense that the presence of 
 the other was necessary for happiness. There came the 
 discovery that thoughts kept flying in one direction to the 
 exclusion of all others. There came the look in his eyes 
 that meant worlds to her, and the drooping of hers when he 
 sought them, the lingering touch when the hands met, the 
 few words that were spoken if they happened to be alone, 
 and the unaccountable shyness with which they were said. 
 They loved each other with all the strength of their young 
 hearts, and though no word of love had yet been spoken, 
 each half guessed the secret of the other, and half dared 
 to hope that the half guess was right. 
 
 There had been no reflection on Bobbie's side as to 
 whither all this was tending, and whether he was justified 
 in winning Rose's love when he was making an income 
 barely large enough to keep himself with the strictest 
 economy and leave a little over for his poor mother, and 
 might have to wait years for better days if they ever came 
 at all. That view of the subject had yet to come, and it 
 came in the Temple one day.
 
 BOBBIE JEFFRIES, BARRISTER-AT-LAW 119 
 
 It happened that the two friends who nominally shared 
 his Chambers both looked in that day to see how Bobbie 
 was getting on, but not with the remotest idea of getting on 
 themselves so far as the practice of the Law was concerned. 
 One of them sat on his table, and the other adjusted a chair 
 so that he could just reach the mantelpiece with his feet. 
 The three compared notes (only Bobbie's notes were not so 
 full as usual, for the one subject of enthralling interest to 
 him was too sacred to be talked about), and then spoke of 
 mutual friends. 
 
 " I say, Bobbie Jeffries, have you heard that Wood, who 
 used to row three in our eight, has got engaged to be 
 married ? " 
 
 " No, indeed, I didn't. Who's the girl ? " 
 
 " She's a Miss Lucas, a parson's daughter, and, therefore, 
 one of, at least, seven, I believe. I don't know what you 
 think, but I call it an infernal shame myself." 
 
 " Why ? " asked Bobbie. 
 
 " Why, indeed ! Just think. Wood has no money, or 
 influence, or anything else. He has taken up school- 
 mastering, because it was the only thing to be done ; but 
 he will never make his fortune out of that, for he only took 
 a Pass in Greats, and he can't hope to be more than an 
 assistant-master on a small screw. If he had capital he 
 might possibly — only possibly mind — succeed by going a 
 buster, and taking a big house at which to receive little 
 boys and give 'em all the comforts of home, with his wife 
 at hand to bath 'em and cut their nails. But he hasn't got 
 even that chance. A nice fellow to go and engage himself 
 to a poor girl, who will either have to wait till doomsday or 
 marry him on nothing, and then they'll come to be like
 
 I20 BOBBIE JEFFRIES, BARRISTER-AT-LAW 
 
 poor old Tom Whistler — you remember him at I'^xeter — 
 and his wife, who live on I'm blest if I know what, and 
 look like it ! I call it beastly selfishness myself." 
 
 Bobbie did not hear much more of the conversation, for 
 he suddenly remembered an engagement and went out. 
 
 " Bobbie Jeffries ain't quite so chirpy as usual. If he 
 was anybody in the world but Bobbie Jeffries I should say 
 he was in the blues," said one friend to the other as they 
 shortly afterwards walked off. 
 
 Bobbie had no engagement. He wanted to try and stop 
 the hammers that were beating in his brain, to quiet his 
 thumping heart if he could, to reduce to some form and 
 purpose the bewildering tumult of thought that was surging 
 within him. Had he been acting the part of a selfish brute 
 towards Rose Murray ? What had he to offer her ? What 
 hope, what prospect, what end could there be to any 
 engagement between them if he were to ask her to pledge 
 her future life to him ? Did not the words of his friend 
 that were ringing in his ears apply exactly, literally, without 
 a shadow of difference to him ? And her father, too, who 
 loved her and had trusted him, how could he meet him as 
 an honourable man when he had stolen Rose's heart per- 
 haps already, and for what ? — to offer her to share penury 
 with him, or wait and wait until her young life drooped and 
 faded with the weariness of hope deferred. What mischief 
 had he not done already in yielding thus heedlessly, blindly, 
 to the promptings of love, that he should have stifled and 
 denied himself at all costs. 
 
 At last he grew a little calmer, and he determined that 
 he would at least act honestly now that he suddenly saw in 
 its true light what manner of thing it was that he had been
 
 BOBBIE JEFFRIES, BARRISTER-AT-LAW 121 
 
 doing all these joyous weeks in which Rose had taken pos- 
 session of his very being. What he meant to do would, he 
 felt sure, be painful to her, but he told himself that it was 
 better, far better, for her future than to seek to tie her to 
 him in life-long poverty. 
 
 Mr. Murray generally came up to Bobbie's room for 
 a smoke after dinner in the evening, and then, when there 
 was no other engagement, they would both go down 
 and spend the rest of the evening with Rose. How 
 Bobbie's heart beat as he heard Mr. Murray's step on this 
 particular evening, for he was going to confess everything 
 to him. 
 
 When the pipes were lighted up and they settled in their 
 accustomed chairs, Bobbie began his confession. He had 
 been so transparently simple and straightforward all his life 
 that the consciousness of having betrayed this good man's 
 confidence, and the despairing magnitude of the reparation 
 he felt called upon to make, almost overpowered him, and 
 Mr. Murray, who was an observant man, saw there was 
 something amiss. 
 
 " What's the matter, Bobbie Jeffries ? " He had got hold 
 of the name now. Every one did. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Murray, the fact is," Bobbie began slowly, 
 but pulled himself together like a man as he went on, " I 
 wanted to tell you that I've been acting like a mean, 
 despicable traitor to you and your daughter." 
 
 Mr. Murray's eyes opened very wide, and he looked 
 searchingly at Bobbie, who went on : " Without realising 
 what it meant — it doesn't make me any better, but I de- 
 clare most solemnly to you that I did not realise it — I have 
 allowed myself to love your daughter truly and dearly, but,
 
 122 BOBBIE JEFFRIES, BARRISTER-AT-LAW 
 
 as I see now, blindly and wrongly, and, what is far worse, I 
 fear that she — that she has grown a little fond of me too. 
 I had no right to do this, Mr. Murray, because I am poor, 
 and have no prospects, no future to offer to her, and it has 
 been a shameful act, for which I beg your forgiveness. 
 Of course, I will leave here at once, and you will make some 
 excuse so that she may not know the reason why I did not 
 — say — good-bye, and she will soon forget me of course. I 
 know too well that you must always think very badly of me, 
 and I make no excuse for myself, but do, do try to believe 
 that I did not mean to do harm, for I love your daughter 
 far too dearly. 
 
 Mr. Murray looked at him oddly, and then his face grew 
 grim and stern. 
 
 "Well, sir, this is a nice business indeed. Pray, have 
 you told my daughter behind my back of your feelings 
 towards her?" 
 
 " On my word of honour, no. 
 
 " But you have just fallen in love with her all the same." 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Murray, I have." 
 
 *' And you think she has fallen in love with you ? " 
 
 " I dare not say that — for her dear sake I hope not — 
 but — but I am afraid our feelings may be mutual." 
 
 Mr. Murray rose very deliberately, and Bobbie knew that 
 an awful moment had come. For the first time in his life 
 he was afraid to meet another man's eye, and was feeling 
 like a criminal about to receive sentence. 
 
 " I am amazed at what you have told me, Bobbie Jeffries, 
 and find it difficult to express my indignation at your 
 conduct. I find it so difficult that there is only one thing, 
 sir, that I have to say to you, and I hope that you'll
 
 BOBBIE yBFFRIES, BARRISTER-AT-LAW 123 
 
 remember my words to the end of your life. What I 
 have to say, sir, is — Go in and win." 
 
 Bobbie sprang up with a bound — but before he could 
 speak Mr. Murray put up his hand and added : " But 
 on one inflexible condition, which is, that you give up the 
 Bar, which, judging from what I have seen so far, need 
 not be a heart-breaking wrench, for your chances don't 
 appear to amount to shucks, and come out with me and 
 be my partner. I am what folks reckon to be a rich man, 
 and I am getting on in years, and I want young blood, 
 and what's more, Bobbie Jeffries, you're the one man I've 
 wanted ever since I set eyes on you, and if my daughter 
 don't have you I'll lock her up." 
 
 He held his hand out and Bobbie gripped it, but he 
 could only utter a few broken words of thanks. His heart 
 was just too full. 
 
 "We've been longer than usual, and Rose will be 
 expecting us downstairs," said Mr. Murray drily, " suppose 
 you go down and fetch her up here instead. You needn't 
 hurry, as I'm only half through this pipe." 
 
 Bobbie did not need a second hint, and was out of the 
 room in a brace of shakes. When he returned, not very 
 long afterwards, but quite long enough for Mr. Murray to 
 have finished his pipe, Rose was with him, blushing like 
 her own sweet name, and he was holding her hand as they 
 entered. Maria said afterwards in the kitchen, that just 
 as they went upstairs, she herself was a-comin' out of the 
 ground floor front, and she see'd Mr. Bobbie Jeffries put 
 his arm round Miss Murray's waist and kiss her, you 
 might knock her (meaning Maria) down if she didn't. 
 Nobody knocked her down and there is no reason to
 
 124 BOBBIE JEFFRIES, BARRISTER-AT-LAW 
 
 suggest that she told an untruth, but then why, when they 
 came into the room, was he only holding Rose's hand? 
 I can't imagine, unless it be the fact, which I should 
 indeed be sorry to believe, that lovers are not straight- 
 forward, and do things behind your back that they would 
 not do before your face. 
 
 Rose went up to her father and kissed him. He looked 
 interrogatively at the beaming young man, who nodded 
 back " yes." Which meant that Bobbie Jeffries had gone 
 in and won.
 
 ( 125 ) 
 
 THE POOR MAN-'S CASTLE 
 
 There are, I am sure, a surprisingly large number of families 
 among the poorer classes who cherish a tradition of some 
 great act of wrong done to them several generations ago, 
 whereby they have been deprived of vast estates which by 
 right belong to them and which would be theirs now, " if 
 things was as they ought to be." It is humorous, and at 
 the same time not without pathos, to see how faded and 
 tattered copies of bits of wills, and hopelessly inconsequent 
 extracts from deeds, are cherished in all sorts of odd re- 
 ceptacles, ranging from empty flower-pots to unlocked table- 
 drawers, and are usually tied up in an outer covering of 
 newspaper, as sacred and conclusive evidence of claims that 
 not all the efforts of all the lawyers in the profession could 
 possibly bring to life now, if they ever existed at all. It 
 would indeed be too pathetic to be at all humorous if 
 these traditions and papers caused any real distress or un- 
 happiness in the family circle, but my own belief is that 
 they do not. On the contrary, I think that in most cases 
 they are distinctly comforting, and serve to cast the halo 
 of a perfectly innocent and harmless delusion over other- 
 wise sordid and unsatisfactory surroundings. They create 
 on a different social plane the same feeling that causes 
 a sea-side lodging-house keeper to tell you, before you can 
 get out of the hall into the elegant apartments that you
 
 126 THE POOR MAN'S CASTLE 
 
 propose to engage for self and family, that she is a lady 
 by birth and education, that her late husband was the 
 nephew of a clergyman, and that her grandfather on the 
 maternal side commanded a ship, the sort and size of ship 
 being left to the imagination. This oppressive weight of 
 gentility may not serve to prevent your sherry from melting 
 faster than you can possibly account for by consumption 
 or evaporation, but it is her mainstay and solace, and may, 
 perchance, seem to her to cover a multitude of sins of 
 abstraction, though you perhaps do not see it in that light. 
 
 These claims to estates that are now wrongfully possessed 
 by somebody else occasionally break out so far as to reach 
 the point of consulting a lawyer. I do not think that the 
 family who cherish the tradition usually get so far on their 
 own account. What happens generally is, that it is their 
 staple subject of conversation to the parson, or the district 
 visitor, or any other person in a superior social class who 
 may happen to take a kindly interest in the family. Then 
 this person begins to think that there must really be some- 
 thing in it, and looks around to find some young solicitor 
 who has his spurs to win, or some old solicitor known as 
 being a kind-hearted man, and meekly submissive to being 
 sponged upon, or some barrister to whom the subject is 
 artfully introduced at dinner by his wife after much feminine 
 scheming, with a view to eliciting his opinion. 
 
 In the days of my youth I have often heard my father 
 assailed on all sides by my mother, who gave her life to the 
 poor of Westminster — Westminster as it was in those days, 
 when it contained slums that would make Whitechapel 
 walk by on the other side and Bethnal Green turn up its 
 nose. She would work round some abstruse pedigree, or
 
 THE POOR MAN'S CASTLE 127 
 
 some proposition of law that had been put to her during 
 the day by one of her deserving objects, who had fully 
 persuaded her that a peerage had been usurped by some 
 insignificant branch of his family, and that on every prin- 
 ciple of law and equity a coronet ought to adorn his brow. 
 I am afraid that my father's callous indifference had been 
 begotten by much experience of my mother's great faith 
 in others and not very logical perception of hard facts, and 
 at all events I know that when I was old enough to follow 
 the conversation, my father always took refuge in dense 
 ignorance, and was never drawn from his retreat by the 
 most insinuating special pleading. The attack nearly always 
 commenced by stating the case in the abstract, and I give 
 an example. 
 
 Supposing that a very rich man died, leaving two sons 
 and three daughters, and the eldest son went away and was 
 never heard of again, and the father gave him up for lost 
 and left the estate to the second son, and the second son 
 died without leaving any children, and two of the daughters 
 never married, but the third daughter married and had 
 a large family, and her eldest son came into the property 
 and died a lunatic, and then her second daughter's eldest 
 boy succeeded, but died when only eighteen, and then 
 somehow the estate got into another family (exact connect- 
 ing Hnks not known, but dark villainy suspected), who have 
 kept it uninterruptedly for about two hundred years. And 
 suppose that after all the eldest son who went away was 
 not dead at all when he was supposed to be, but became 
 a bushranger in Australia, and had a bushranging family 
 of children from whom (as it was firmly believed on no 
 evidence whatever) John Crump, a cabdriver, of No. 249
 
 128 THE POOR MAN'S CASTLE 
 
 Strutton Ground, Westminster, and a very respectable man 
 except on Saturday nights, was a direct descendant, but 
 through what branches or trees there was nothing to show. 
 Supposing all this, was it not clear to the most obtuse and 
 obstinate mind that John Crump was on every principle of 
 justice entitled to that estate? Thus my mother. 
 
 " I don't know," would be my father's chilling answer. 
 
 " But really if a man is a direct descendant of another 
 man, is he not his heir ? " 
 
 " I have heard so," replied my father. 
 
 " But, Edward, who else could possibly be the rightful 
 owner ? " persisted my mother. 
 
 " I should say the people who have got it. They seem 
 to have been there for some time." 
 
 " Oh, no ! that is surely impossible. They don't come 
 through the eldest son at all." Thus my mother again, 
 who is thinking of the cabman and his seven children, and 
 in the wish of her compassionate heart to see them suddenly 
 raised above all want, would do anything short of telling 
 an untruth to behold them wake up to find the estate theirs, 
 and to leave Westminster in a carriage and pair, with the 
 cabman in the novel position of riding inside. 
 
 No answer from my father. 
 
 "Well, Edward, I only ask you whether it isn't a case 
 that ought to be taken up by some one ? " 
 
 " If by some one you mean me, my dear, I think not, 
 because I don't know enough law, and besides I am not a 
 solicitor. You must wa^t till this boy gets into the pro- 
 fession, and he will prove all your Westminster pedigrees, 
 and find estates for all your poor people without the least 
 difficulty."
 
 THE POOR MAN'S CASTLE 129 
 
 I was " this boy," and a very junior articled clerk at the 
 time. Don't think that my father's cynicism was real or 
 unkindly meant. He knew that my mother believed every- 
 thing that could possibly make anybody else happy, or 
 raise any poor soul above the grinding struggles in the 
 midst of which her saintly life was spent, and to damp her 
 ardent belief in impossible visions for her poor people was, 
 in sober earnest, a painful necessity, because there was 
 reason to fear that her sympathy, never denied to anybody, 
 most innocently encouraged idle hopes in wildly impossible 
 claims. 
 
 When I was a little older my mother would turn her 
 battery on to me, and more than once in a back room, de- 
 voted to my vespertinal efforts to read law, I held interviews 
 with people who came to unfold the sort of story of which 
 I have given an illustration. I will not deny that at that 
 verdant period of life I occasionally pictured myself rising 
 to fame upon the successful prosecution of dormant rights 
 to titles and estates of great magnitude, while on the more 
 modest platform of matrimonial disputes, claims to custody 
 of children, distresses for rent (plenty of them, alas ! ) 
 seizure of goods by the bailiff (plenty of bailiffs), and rights 
 of action against all sorts of people for all sorts of things I 
 propounded with great confidence, for the benefit of clients 
 introduced to me by my mother, opinions that I now 
 shudder to recall, and for which I hope I may be forgiven. 
 I grieve to add that the only solid achievement I ever ac- 
 complished was to secure the dismissal from my profession 
 of a disreputable solicitor who had received money to 
 settle a claim against a very respectable man in humble 
 circumstances, and had misappropriated the same, with the
 
 I30 THE POOR MAN'S CASTLE 
 
 result that when all trouble was supposed to be over the 
 bailiffs appeared and sold up the unfortunate victim. I 
 tried first to get the scoundrel to return the money, and 
 paid several visits to a room on a top floor which repre' 
 sented his office. He was usually out and the door 
 locked, with a dirty piece of paper pinned to it, indicating 
 that he would return presently, and when I did run him to 
 earth he declared, I believe truly, that he had no money 
 to pay with, and in answer to my indignant rhetoric took 
 refuge in an undoubted fact, which I have often heard 
 asserted since as an original proposition, viz., that it is 
 beyond the reach of any known form of pressure, scientific, 
 legal, or otherwise to extract blood from a stone. I used 
 for some years to see him hanging about the purlieus of the 
 law, but he must long since have ended his dishonoured 
 existence. It was characteristic of my mother that for long 
 afterwards she often asked me wistfully, and with a most 
 unconvincing air of severity, ostentatiously put on to con- 
 ceal feelings of pity to which she did not dare to confess, 
 whether I ever heard anything about that " unhappy 
 man." 
 
 I feel that I have digressed, but I could not bring my- 
 self to hide under a bushel the one and only result of my 
 " parleyings with certain people," as I think Robert Brown- 
 ing has it, as the youthful adviser of my mother in her 
 efforts to obtain justice, as she saw it, for those who could 
 not afford to pay for that somewhat expensive, not to say 
 dubious and wall-eyed blessing. 
 
 When I grew older and busier my mother's consideration 
 would not allow her to tax me heavily, but certain parson 
 friends came on and filled up the vacuum. I know they
 
 THE POOR MAN'S CASTLE 131 
 
 meant it kindly, and I am sure they believed they were 
 doing me a good turn and affording me an opportunity of 
 distinguishing myself, to say nothing of the material re- 
 wards that would be showered on me if I could for instance 
 establish the title of John Gubbins, then engaged in agri- 
 cultural labours not unconnected with the spreading of 
 manure, to the earldom of Fitzblitheringay, the lordship of 
 numerous manors, and an estate in Northumberland pro- 
 ducing, as it was confidently believed, at least ;!^4o,ooo a 
 year. I must not weary the beloved reader with too much 
 illustration, but if I die for it, or my reader does (which 
 latter event I should if possible regard as a worse calamity 
 to the nation), I cannot forbear to describe one incident of 
 this kind that occurred to me. I will only observe by way 
 of preface that it took place at a period of my life when 
 I may go so far as to say that time had become valuable 
 to me. 
 
 When immersed one day in occupations that I trust 
 were useful, declare to have been honest, and hope were 
 not altogether devoid of remuneration, a clerk entered my 
 room and shut the door behind him. His face wore a 
 peculiar expression that is only seen on the clerkly counte- 
 nance when respect (by which I mean of course only the 
 outward ^emblance of respect) is struggling with ill-concealed 
 mirth. He had a note in his hand which I recognised on 
 his giving it to me to be in the writing of a very old friend 
 of mine who was vicar of a parish in Kent. I opened it, 
 and read as follows : — 
 
 " Dear old Boy, — I am sending up with this note a 
 parishioner of mine who is the wife of a man here that
 
 132 THE POOR MAN'S CASTLE 
 
 seems to me to have a very good case for claiming a castle 
 and other property ; but, of course, I am not a lawyer and 
 you are, and you will be able to say if there is anything in 
 it. She is very nervous, so she brings a friend with her. I 
 have told her that if there is any lawyer living who will be 
 able to help her husband to his rights you are that man, 
 and that I know you will give her your best advice to 
 oblige me. Besides, I suppose that if the man really has a 
 good case it would be in your line, and, of course, he ought 
 to pay you well if you get the property for him. — Yours 
 ever, George Tucker." 
 
 I perused the epistle with dismay, divining only too 
 surely what was in store for me, and looked up at the clerk, 
 who was still struggling to preserve a faint imitation of 
 decorum. 
 
 " There are two women waiting, sir, and they said they 
 wished to see you immediately, and it was most important. 
 They wanted to come in with me, but I said I must give 
 you the letter first, and they are waiting just outside your 
 door." 
 
 Great emergencies beget calmness in really noble 
 characters. I sighed, and bade the clerk show them in. 
 Two females thereupon entered my room, and I had no 
 difficulty in making out which was the interested person 
 and which was the friend, because the latter assumed very 
 ostentatiously the air of a lady-in-waiting or supporter to 
 my real client. She held the client's handkerchief for 
 instance, mopped the client's brow, assisted the client to 
 remove her gloves, and fished out of her own pockets, and 
 handed solemnly to her, papers evidently brought for the
 
 THE POOR MAN'S CASTLE 133 
 
 purposes of the interview. She might have been her brides- 
 maid at her wedding, her devoted friend at her execution, 
 or her sympathetic companion at the funeral of one of her 
 near relatives, and shadowed forth dimly to me all those 
 possible associations in turn. These services of love were 
 all rendered in pantomime without the slightest reference 
 to me, and then both of them settled down with an obvious 
 intention of having it out, and a conscious air of conferring 
 favours on me by consulting me about a business of such 
 extreme importance. One peculiarity about the client I 
 must mention, because it had a powerful effect on my nerves 
 all through the interview. For some reason best known to 
 herself, and perhaps to the medical faculty, she had a pro- 
 digious fortification of cotton wool in each ear. When- 
 ever she spoke she kept the two balls of cotton wool in 
 position, and whenever she wished to listen (which I am 
 bound to add was not often) she took them out and held 
 them till I had finished, or she had heard as much as she 
 cared about, and then put them back as a signal that she 
 had commenced talking again. Her dialect was that of the 
 cockney rather than of the rustic, as my friend's parish was 
 within easy reach of London and a favourite haunt of the 
 cyclist and the tripper. 
 
 " Mr. Tucker the vicar, and a nice good gent 'e is, told 
 my 'usband and me that you was quite respectable, and 
 knew wot was wot, and 'e said we couldn't do better than 
 bring it to you, and that 'e was sure you wouldn't charge 
 anything unless you got the property for us, and it wouldn't 
 much matter in a way of speakin' if you did charge as we 
 couldn't pay and there's nothing to take except a few sticks 
 of furniture and a pig ; but if we get the property my 'usband
 
 134 THE POOR MAN'S CASTLE 
 
 says 'e will act 'andsomc, and 'is word is truer than 'is bond 
 though I says it, and our name is 'Awkins, well known in 
 the village, and you may ask any one, and my friend 'ere is 
 Mrs. Gill, well known likewise." 
 
 Mrs. Hawkins paused for breath, not having yet got her 
 second wind, and removed the cotton wool as a signal that 
 I might have a turn. 
 
 ** Well, we won't say anything about charging, but as I 
 am very busy let me just hear what it is all about. I see 
 your friend is holding some papers for you. Shall I look 
 at them first ? " 
 
 That suggestion did not in the least commend itself to 
 Mrs, Hawkins. She evidently wished to lead up to the 
 papers, to walk round about them, to approach them with 
 reverence, to prepare me for their enormous importance. 
 So she put back the cotton wool and presented the family 
 case in her own way, which was a very circuitous way, and 
 intersected by many side-paths which she went down and 
 then up again, sometimes coming back to the main road 
 where she had left it, but oftener not. 
 
 I would not attempt to repeat the narrative even if 
 I could, and indeed one of these pedigree cases in 
 humble life is just the same as another in all essential 
 features. There is always a property with or without a 
 title. It has always become diverted from the rightful 
 owner by fraud, or by ignorance of the existence of some 
 one who went to sea and was supposed to be drowned 
 but was not really drowned, or who was a bit wild and 
 enlisted, or who in some other manner dropped out of the 
 branches of the family tree. The claimant always derives 
 his unimpeachable title to the property by tracing descent
 
 THE POOR MAN'S CASTLE 135 
 
 from the person originally excluded. In doing so he 
 always jumps over any number of gaps, violates any number 
 of rules of descent, assumes any number of impossible 
 events to have happened, possesses no evidence or informa- 
 tion worth a threepenny bit, and derives immense moral 
 support from the possession of two or three grimy papers 
 which have as much to do with the subject as Magna 
 Charta. 
 
 There is also a peculiarity in these cases which con- 
 fronted me with particular severity on the occasion to 
 which I am now referring. The least doubt as to 
 the title of the claimant being as plain as a pike-staff 
 to the meanest intellect is regarded either as a personal 
 affront, or received with pitying contempt as a confession 
 of professional incompetence. When I hinted mildly to 
 Mrs. Hawkins (I did it mildly because Westminster ex- 
 periences had taught me that the ice was thin) that I 
 feared her papers did not carry her husband very far on 
 the desired road, she did not answer me at all but con- 
 stituted her friend a sort of arbitrator between us, and 
 turning to her said she should like to know what more 
 anybody who understood things could want. The friend 
 said so should she indeed, and then they glared at me in 
 a duet of silent scorn. 
 
 I replied, still mildly, that it was difficult to explain to 
 them what more I did want (my greatest want on earth at 
 the moment was to get rid of them), but that after reading 
 the papers and listening to Mrs. Hawkins I was afraid that, 
 before even an opinion could be formed, an immense 
 amount of additional information was required, which it 
 would occupy a long time to get, and which would cost a
 
 136 THE POOR MAN'S CASTLE 
 
 great deal of money, and might in the end only result in 
 showing that the claim could not succeed. I am afraid 
 this was not quite a truthful statement, because it was very 
 clear to me that there was not a shadow of a claim, and 
 that tons of additional materials would not help to build 
 one, but I put it that way because Mrs. Hawkins was 
 evidently beginning to bridle, and she was a powerfully 
 built woman with a rather flaming type of countenance. 
 
 When I had delivered myself of this remark she first 
 restored the globes of cotton wool to her ears, then she 
 sniffed as the war horse is usually understood to sniff 
 battle ; then she asked her friend in withering tones what 
 she, the friend, thought of me as a lawyer, to which the 
 friend replied, " Well, I don't think much of 'im myself, 
 that's wot I don't think, dear." 
 
 Then Mrs. Hawkins turned on me and said in a very 
 loud voice and with a very red face that I shouldn't have 
 the case, not if she was to starve for it ; that she was sur- 
 prised, she was, that the vicar didn't know better than to 
 allow her to waste her time and money to come up and 
 see me, that every one she or her husband had ever spoken 
 to had entirely agreed with them that the case was so clear 
 that immediately it was begun the others wouldn't fight, 
 not they indeed ; and finally that she didn't value my 
 opinion against them a pin no not a pin, and there were 
 plenty of lawyers who did know their business. With this 
 parting benediction, she said "good morning" as if the 
 words came out of a steel trap, called to her friend to 
 "come along" as if there were pollution in my very 
 presence, or danger of being kidnapped, and having poured 
 on me most of the vials of her wrath, she, as I afterwards
 
 THE POOR MAN'S CASTLE 137 
 
 heard, emptied the remainder on the head of the unfor- 
 tunate vicar, to whom she paid a boiling hot visit immedi- 
 ately on her return. I for my part smoothed my ruffled 
 feathers as well as I could, and turned my attention to 
 more satisfactory business. 
 
 I used to ask about Hawkins and his case periodically 
 afterwards when I went to stay with my friend the vicar, 
 and once when walking with him I met Mrs. Hawkins in 
 the village street. She turned very red, and upon my 
 word I believe I did too. She also turned up her nose at 
 me and muttered something that sounded like "lawyer 
 indeed — well I'm sure ! " 
 
 I never heard that any legal gentleman espoused the 
 cause of Hawkins, whose castle still remains in the air 
 with many other castles that require no foundations, cost 
 nothing to build, never need to be repaired, will take in 
 any number of guests, and look most brilliant when lighted 
 up. I had a castle of that sort myself once, and it was 
 called Castle Hope, but somehow or other, after it had 
 been mine for a good many years, it passed away from me 
 into the possession of a very much younger man than 
 myself, and I have been looking about unsuccessfully ever 
 since to find another to suit me.
 
 ( 138 ) 
 
 TREACLE'S PETITION 
 
 Treacle was the first person with whom I made friends 
 upon entering at a very early age the mazes of the law, and 
 his petition was the first important document that I ever 
 had to do with. 
 
 Though quite a young man, with dramatic tendencies 
 and a rooted antipathy to work of every description, he was 
 the living embodiment of a Chancery suit. I mean this 
 literally, because his father had been a gentleman of some 
 position, who had spent his money too freely, and had 
 mortgaged his property to a Life Office who were clients of 
 the firm. The mortgage had been foreclosed ; and he had 
 departed this life leaving his blessing, his encumbrances, 
 his one son, and nothing else behind him. The firm had 
 had compassion on the orphan lad, and taken him in sheer 
 kindness into the office; and they would have made a 
 lawyer of him if they could, that is to say, if he could have 
 been made one, but he was not cut that way. It was a 
 popular tradition in the office that the only important act 
 of business Treagle had ever done was to go and wait in 
 the Rolls Yard for one hour in order to be able to make an 
 affidavit afterAvards that he, Treagle, had not himself come 
 there during that period and paid off, in manner provided 
 by a certain Chancery decree, a mortgage of ;!^6o,ooo due 
 from his late father to clients of the firm. The story, like
 
 TREAGLE'S PETITION 139 
 
 many other good ones, was probably a little coloured, but 
 there certainly was a more or less solid foundation of truth 
 in it. Treagle was a sore trial to the Managing Chancery 
 Clerk, and would have taxed the patience of a saint. 
 
 His petition, as I say, was the first important document 
 that I ever had to do with. I had a good deal to do with 
 it, because Treagle rather leant on me than otherwise during 
 its preparation, for no particular reason that I am aware 
 of, except that we soon struck up a friendship, that Treagle's 
 compositions did not flow easily, and that I threw out dark 
 hints soon after I entered the offices that I " wrote for the 
 magazines." My writing for the magazines at that period 
 took the practical form of sending off at intervals to editors 
 portentous packets containing contributions from my pen 
 that deserved to be immortal, and receiving back the same 
 with great regularity addressed to me in my own writing, 
 and stamped at my expense, but that is neither here nor 
 there. I did write for them, and if they did not choose to 
 perceive the hall-mark of genius in my literary productions, 
 it was their fault, not mine ; and I cannot doubt that they 
 have since repented in sackcloth and ashes, and would now 
 offer fabulous sums for the merest trifle from my pen. 
 
 The object of the petition was an advance of pay. As 
 Treagle remarked to me, " A chap can't grow fat on thirty 
 bob a week/' and that was the amount of his salary. I 
 should, personally, be glad to grow thin on that or any 
 lesser sum, having developed a tendency to corpulence, but 
 Treagle and I were as thin as herrings then, and his way 
 of putting it touched me. Besides, I was proud to be 
 honoured with his confidences. 
 
 " What do you propose to say ? " I asked, when Treagle
 
 MO TRBAGLB'S PETITION 
 
 unfolded to me his desire for increase of pay, and his inten- 
 tion of petitioning for it. 
 
 " Why, you know, I thought of saying something about 
 great increase of work in Chancery department, and — and 
 —all that sort of thing." 
 
 " Is your own work harder than it was ? " 
 
 " Well, you know, as far as that goes," replied Treagle, 
 with a suggestion of pink mantling on his cheeks, " I don't 
 know that I do so much more myself. Still, a chap can't 
 grow fat on thirty bob a week." 
 
 That was Treagle's sheet-anchor, and a very good one I 
 thought it. 
 
 So, one afternoon, when Treagle had returned from a 
 round of duties in the courts and public offices, and had 
 recorded in his petty cash-book "O'bus 6d." (being at once 
 an abbreviation of the word " omnibus " and a poetic 
 figure, as he had walked both ways), and had prepared the 
 draft of an affidavit of service, and (with much more sus- 
 tained attention) the draft of a programme of some theatri- 
 cals in which he was to take part, Treagle and I set to work 
 upon the petition. 
 
 He wrote a beautiful hand, and when he began with the 
 word "Gentlemen," and hemmed in the "G" in a sort 
 of bird-cage of artistic flourishes, it seemed to me that the 
 petition must carry everything before it. 
 
 " In consequence of the great increase of work in the 
 Chancery departtnent" went on Treagle, and then came 
 to a full stop. 
 
 '■^ In which I have not personally taken any active part,^^ 
 I suggested when he paused. 
 
 " Look here," replied Treagle, "if you're going to help
 
 TRBAGLE'S PETITION 141 
 
 a chap, help a chap ; and if you're going to play the fool, 
 play it, and say so." 
 
 I begged his pardon, and protested my anxiety to give 
 him all the help I could, and as evidence of that dis- 
 position, I suggested as the next sentence : 
 
 " / venture to ask that the amount of my present salary 
 be taken into consideration " 
 
 Treagle liked that, and took it down. Emboldened by 
 his approval I went on : 
 
 " With a view to its being immediately raised to at least 
 forty shillings a week." 
 
 Treagle shook his head. 
 
 "That's much too stiff," he said. "They wouldn't stand 
 being collared like that, and would tell me to go and be 
 bio wed. We must grovel, or I shan't have a chance." 
 
 He balanced a ruler thoughtfully on his nose, and then 
 proceeded : 
 
 "and that you will very kindly raise it a little, as I find 
 it very hard to make both ends fneet." 
 
 So he did, poor fellow, especially the end that had to 
 provide him with the means of cutting a dash among his 
 dramatic and other associates. 
 
 He looked at me for an inspiration, and I in turn looked 
 at him. Ideas did not romp in upon us somehow. 
 
 "Can't you say something about having been here a long 
 time ? " I asked. 
 
 He shook his head, and remarked laconically, " Haven't." 
 
 " At all events, you can make no end of promises for the 
 future." 
 
 He brightened up, and said he thought that might 
 wash.
 
 142 TRBAGLE'S PETITION 
 
 "Put in something like this," I suggested, pleased with 
 my powers of inspiration : 
 
 " If you should \:;racioiisly accede to my request^ my very best 
 efforts will be cheerfully given to pro/note your interests by 
 earnest and zealous work, and I shall always be ?nost happy 
 to stay up to any hour at ?iight" 
 
 " No, I'm blessed if I shall," interrupted Treagle. " Half- 
 past nine to six is quite as much as I can stomach of this 
 confounded place. It's all right down to 'earnest and 
 zealous work,' because that's a matter of opinion, but we'll 
 stow the remarks about night, young Turner." So we 
 stowed them, and he wound up, with any amount of 
 flourishes — 
 
 " I am, gentlemen, 
 
 " Your obediefit servant, 
 
 " William Treacle." 
 
 Treagle insisted on posting this manifesto, in an envelope 
 marked " Private," from Pentonville, and he (and in a 
 lesser degree, I) awaited the answer in feverish impatience. 
 Among other reasons, his landlady was a little pressing just 
 then, and had thrown out strong hints that a payment on 
 account would oblige ; in addition to which he was to appear 
 shortly as a baronet at some theatricals got up by an Amateur 
 Dramatic Club of which he was a leading light, and his 
 best trousers were very baggy at the knees and otherwise 
 unbaronet-like ; so that much depended on the petition. 
 
 The firm did not appear to be moved to its base. 
 Business went on as usual, and several days elapsed before 
 any outward and visible sign appeared on Treagle's horizon. 
 At length, however, the answer came, and even before read- 
 ing it I inferred that it was unsatisfactory, because when I
 
 TRBAGLE'S PETITION 143 
 
 arrived in the morning, Treagle's face was a picture of 
 haughty pride, interspersed with a dash of blank disap- 
 pointment that he could not conceal. He flung a letter 
 on my table, and, in tones of withering scorn, asked me 
 what I thought of f/iai for beastly ingratitude and 
 meanness. 
 
 " Messrs. Decimus, Caldecott & Bradbury are unable to 
 comply with Mr. Treagle's request. The increase of work 
 in his department has not, as they regret to note, been 
 attended by corresponding indications of increased per- 
 sonal exertions on his part, and the salary at present paid 
 to him fully represents the firm's estimate of the value 
 of his services. Any efforts on Mr. Treagle's part to 
 merit advancement by greater assiduity will be promptly 
 recognised." 
 
 Treagle walked about for some days after that with the 
 demeanour of a crushed tragedian upon him, but his natural 
 sweetness of temper soon asserted itself again, and before 
 long his petition was a standing joke between us. Perhaps 
 it would have been wiser if, instead of making a jest of the 
 petition, he had taken to heart the answer to it, but the 
 law was not in him, and he soon turned his back on it for 
 good or evil, but whether for the one or the other I know 
 not, as he went abroad, and our paths in life have never 
 converged since.
 
 ( 144 ) 
 
 TREACLES FLEETING HONOURS 
 
 In a previous paper I referred to my acquaintance in 
 early life with one Treagle, who was an office companion of 
 mine during part of my period of Articles of Clerkship, and 
 who, like the cavalry officer in one of Robertson's plays, if he 
 got very little pay, did very little work for it. I am moved 
 now to describe a dramatic representation in which Treagle 
 played a conspicuous part, and to which he kindly invited 
 me. At least it was not perhaps exactly an invitation in one 
 sense, because I had to pay two shillings each for my tickets, 
 but that outlay secured me very distinguished and promi- 
 nent seats — in the first row of all, to be exact — and the 
 entertainment was well worth all the money. The only 
 regret I experienced was a painful suspicion that a good 
 many tickets had been given away, and that, as compared 
 with others in the audience, I had not been put on what 
 financiers I believe love to call " bed-rock " terms. It is 
 one of the highest instincts I take it of human nature, that 
 we all like to be treated equally with or better than our 
 fellow-men, though we do not always do unto others what 
 we expect them to do for us. 
 
 I have referred to my seats in the plural. I feel at 
 liberty to mention at this very considerable distance of 
 time that a young lady, by the name of Jessie Stone, went 
 with me. She was not of exalted rank, but she was as
 
 TREAGLE'S FLEETING HONOURS 145 
 
 good as she was beautiful, and vice versa, as beautiful as 
 she was good. I was very much in love with her, and I 
 confided daily to Treagle that I hoped at a somewhat 
 remote date to be in a position to call her my bride. I 
 never did arrive at that proud moment, most fortunately 
 for both of us ; and I decline to state which of us proved 
 fickle. It is enough to record the fact that she never 
 became mine, and ultimately bestowed herself on a young 
 man in a linen-draper's shop, to whom I trust she proved 
 a treasure beyond pearls. 
 
 The first thing I realised when we arrived at the theatre, 
 which was not a theatre at all, but a long room with a stage 
 put up at one end of it, and took our places, was that the 
 orchestra consisted of a young woman and a piano, and 
 that the young woman was exactly in front of us, and had 
 her hair done up at the back in a chignon of large size 
 even for those days. It was so large, and so very close to 
 us, that it operated like a sort of eclipse, and we had to 
 dodge round it in order to get a clear view of the stage. 
 The young woman was evidently an amateur, and one of 
 Treagle's dramatic associates, for when not actually playing 
 she turned her head round and nodded the same, chignon 
 and all, to many of the audience with a good deal of ges- 
 ticulation and freedom. She also had a terrible but very 
 necessary mother sitting in our row, who to my great 
 indignation then, but, as I now think, in my best interests, 
 gave me a stony glare whenever I made a dab at Jessie's 
 hand, which even under that discouragement I did on 
 an average every ten minutes. When the be-chignoned 
 daughter did play she strummed waltz music of the period 
 very indifferently. I desire here and now, in a parenthesis, 
 
 K
 
 146 TREAGLE'S FLEETING HONOURS 
 
 to record my solemn conviction that the waltz music of 
 that period was absolutely the most puerile, ridiculous, 
 drivelling, namby-pamby stuff that was ever composed in 
 this world. In saying that I am sheltered from an action 
 of libel, because I mention no names and keep the period 
 a deadly secret. 
 
 In due course, that is to say about twenty minutes 
 behind time, the play began. I am sure it was quite a 
 classic piece, and that I ought to remember the name of it, 
 to say nothing of the author, but I have to confess that I 
 do not, and must meekly bear whatever blame attaches to 
 me. There were three acts, and the general idea of the 
 play was that a young country baronet (Treagle was the 
 young country baronet) was very much taken with the 
 meretricious attractions of an adventuress who purported 
 to be a widow, and called herself the Countess de Some- 
 thing, insomuch that he blindly overlooked the sterling 
 virtues of a local lady, who, though not so showy, was 
 distinctly good - looking in a modest English way, and 
 positively exuding with those merits which go to consti- 
 tute the model wife. A shrewd old widow lady, the mother 
 of the baronet, appraised the two ladies at their respective 
 proper values early in the first act, and by dint of employ- 
 ing a detective, who betrayed what he was in nearly every 
 word and gesture to the meanest intellect, to make secret 
 discoveries about the countess, gradually stripped the mask 
 off that lady, until she ultimately made her exit, admitting 
 fiercely that she was not a countess at all, and confessing to 
 being married already to a suspicious-looking character whose 
 presence on the stage had been a puzzle all through. She 
 said very nasty things as she swept out of the room followed
 
 TREAGLE'S FLEETING HONOURS 147 
 
 by her husband, and slammed the door in a manner that 
 made the whole room rock for several minutes, as if an 
 earthquake were included in the scenic effects. Comic 
 relief was afforded by two characters, who had nothing to 
 do with the play, but came in and sat on two chairs, with 
 a representation behind them of what appeared to be 
 Hampton Court in the distance; but why Hampton Court, 
 and why the two chairs, and why the two characters, this 
 deponent could not tell then, and certainly cannot make 
 up the deficiency now. Within five minutes after pro- 
 fessing for the last of innumerable times his passionate 
 attachment to the adventuress, the baronet, on her being 
 ultimately exposed, discovered that all along his real affec- 
 tions (admirably concealed from view) had been in the 
 keeping of the local lady, and the curtain fell as he, with 
 a wealth of meaning, held out his arms and said, " Mary ! " 
 and she, without a moment's hesitation, fell into them, and 
 said, " Arthur ! " 
 
 This brief sketch will doubtless recall to the faithful 
 playgoer the name of the piece and its author. The 
 personal interest in it for me was of course largely centred 
 in Treagle, who, as I thought, acquitted himself admirably, 
 and the more so as he was a good deal handicapped by 
 adverse circumstances. It has to be confessed that the 
 piece was not staged or dressed with the luxury which 
 these latter days demand, nor were the pecuniary resources 
 of Treagle and his companions in art equal to any great 
 demand, even when measured by the modest requirements 
 of that time. It is true that he had somehow acquired 
 for the occasion a portentous moustache, which he stroked 
 in the most baronet-like manner. He even tried to twirl it,
 
 148 TREAGLE'S FLEETING HONOURS 
 
 but the twist he gave made the left-hand half come off, 
 and he had to hold it in its place until he could get off 
 and apply more gum. His costume was deficient also in 
 variety, A double-breasted black morning coat with a 
 bordering of braid, then very popular, which poor old 
 Treagle had bought ready-made in Middle Row, Holborn 
 (where art thou now, oh ! Middle Row, Holborn, of my 
 youth ?), with myself in attendance as a committee of taste, 
 had to do duty all through the play. In that useful but 
 monotonous garment he came in from a morning ride, 
 sallied forth to hunt in the winter, gave a picnic in the 
 woods in the summer, and dressed for dinner with a white 
 tie to mark the distinction. Motives of delicacy forbid me 
 to dwell on his nether garments, but I must just say that 
 they were baggy at the knees to an extent that passes 
 words. He also had about him on all these very dissimilar 
 occasions a tall hat, likewise purchased in Holborn in my 
 company, and worn daily to the office, which he kept trying 
 to get rid of, with the result of somebody sitting on it or 
 knocking it over. I cannot acquit Treagle of blame as 
 regards that article, because it really was not necessary in 
 any scene, and was terribly out of place in most of them. 
 I have a suspicion that if brown shoes had been in existence 
 then he would have worn them, but they were not, and he was 
 finished off with Blucher boots, which were never elegant as a 
 species, and are, I suppose, as extinct now as Blucher himself. 
 Looking back calmly now, I fear I must describe the 
 acting as rudimentary, and admit that even Treagle was 
 not above criticism ; but I was less exacting, or perhaps 
 I ought to say captious, then, and I, and therefore my 
 young lady companion, applauded violently whenever he
 
 TREACLE'S FLEETING HONOURS 149 
 
 came on and whenever he went off, and whenever he said 
 anything that we thought spirited and out of the common, 
 and also after each act. His exits, I remember, were re- 
 markable, for he nearly always persisted in going out with 
 a lady on each arm (a situation in which Adonis himself 
 would look an ass), and as the doors were narrow, and the 
 party of three always foolishly tried to charge at them walk- 
 ing abreast of each other, they got jammed every time this 
 incident occurred, the sequel being an unseemly scrimmage 
 and the survival of the fittest. 
 
 The audience were very friendly, and indeed composed 
 almost entirely of relatives and friends of the performers, 
 and beyond a slight tendency to giggle when unrehearsed 
 effects occurred — among them I remember a moon that 
 was very skittish and un-astronomical, and a curtain that 
 refused to come down when Treagle was finishing an act 
 on one knee before the countess — the players had every 
 reason to be satisfied with the encouragement bestowed on 
 their efforts, and I may add that they undoubtedly were, 
 if I may judge of Treagle as an example. 
 
 It had been arranged that I should go round to the stage 
 door after the performance with Jessie and introduce her to 
 Treagle, and then we were both to escort her home, and 
 then I was to go to his lodgings with him for supper. He 
 no sooner joined us in a dark passage and made the 
 acquaintance of Jessie than he eagerly asked — 
 
 " How do you think it went ? " 
 
 '* Splendidly," we both said heartily, in chorus. 
 
 " Did I get through all right ? " 
 
 Fervent assurances, again in chorus, that he got through 
 admirably and played the part to the life.
 
 I50 TREAGLE'S FLEETING HONOURS 
 
 " Did you like the way I turned on the countess when 
 I discovered what sort of woman she really was ? " 
 
 The chorus liked it more than they could possibly 
 express, and considered it the finest bit of acting in a per- 
 formance of immense merit. 
 
 " Fairbrother wasn't much good, was he, as the real 
 husband ? " 
 
 I was about to speak up for Fairbrother, and in fact 
 began, " Oh ! yes, we thought him — " when I caught a 
 look on Treagle's face which told me that it would not be 
 agreeable to him if praise were lavished on Fairbrother, 
 so I rather inconsequently died away with the words, "very 
 poor," upon which the cloud immediately disappeared from 
 Treagle's brow. In fact, he then relented so far as to say 
 that Fairbrother would not be such a bad actor if he did 
 not think such a confounded lot of himself, adding in a 
 tone that plainly showed how amazing he considered 
 Fairbrother's assurance, "he actually wanted to play my 
 part ! " 
 
 Chorus signified that such an idea on the part of 
 Fairbrother was beyond human understanding, and we 
 all laughed heartily at his impudence. 
 
 1 could not help noticing that Treagle had, so to speak, 
 brought the baronet out of the theatre with him, and that 
 the rank which he had adorned during the evening died 
 hard. He assumed an air of courtly condescension, and 
 wore his hat a little on one side in a rakish and, as he 
 evidently thought, aristocratic manner. He spoke as if 
 in some undefined way he were removed from our humble 
 sphere and stood to us in the relationship of a patron. 
 He addressed us once as "you two silly children," and
 
 TREAGLE'S FLEETING HONOURS 151 
 
 told Jessie patronisingly that this youngster (meaning me) 
 was not a bad boy but required looking after; which 
 indeed was, I regret to say, perfectly true, but Treagle 
 was not exactly such a model supervisor for a budding 
 articled clerk as his experienced man-of-the-world tone 
 seemed to imply, nor had he ever, to the best of my belief, 
 cumbered me with sage advice. 
 
 Then as the baronet faded another tendency developed 
 on Treagle's part. He talked darkly of chucking up the law 
 and going on the stage. He compared himself generally 
 with " other chaps " who were making a very good thing of 
 it, and opined that he was just as good as they were, and 
 that if he could once get known he would soon go ahead. 
 
 Chorus intimated that he was not only as good as, but 
 much better than other chaps, and that if he once made a 
 start he would soon show the public what acting was. 
 
 Do not suppose that in responding thus to Treagle's 
 mood we were consciously guilty of servile flattery. We 
 were not at a critical age remember, and we really had 
 thought Treagle rather fine, and, moreover, we felt a glow 
 of conscious pride in having been permitted to go to a 
 stage door and wait for the principal male character and 
 walk along the street with him ; and there was just that 
 difference between Treagle's age and our ages to set him 
 on a pedestal of superiority. 
 
 Poor Treagle ! He was (as in a previous paper shown) 
 a lawyer's clerk, in the receipt of a salary of thirty shillings 
 a week. It may not have been the best possible thing for 
 him to try and imagine himself a baronet, either on or off 
 the stage, or to contemplate a theatrical career, for which 
 I do not suppose he had the smallest talent or caUing.
 
 152 TREAGLB'S FLEETING HONOURS 
 
 But the first vision had faded even before he and I came 
 in sight of his cheap and shabby lodgings in Pentonville 
 that night, and as for his stage fever, I know that it did 
 not last long, and whatever he did in after life he certainly 
 never pursued that vainglorious and most uncertain calling. 
 Not much harm was done therefore by his flight of fancy 
 into realms that for a brief space enabled him to forget 
 the rather dismal reflections in which he often indulged, 
 and which were generally summed up by his heaving a 
 sigh and remarking, " I tell you what it is, young Turner, 
 a chap can't grow fat on thirty bob a week." 
 
 We escorted the fair Jessie to the door of the house 
 wherein she resided with her parents, and Treagle appro- 
 priately turned away while I said good-night to her, and 
 for the fiftieth time vowed one of those vows of which only 
 about one in fifty ever comes to anything, the other forty- 
 nine being carried away by the wind. And then Treagle and 
 I made our way on the top of an omnibus to Pentonville, 
 where he was to entertain me to a little supper and a game 
 of cards before the pleasures of the evening ended. 
 
 He lodged in a house which had all the dignity of being 
 No. 23 in something Square, but I cannot pretend to say 
 that the houses were large or tidy looking, or the Square 
 itself cheerful to the eye. Of course, on this particular 
 occasion it was dark, and I could not judge, but I saw it 
 once on a Saturday afternoon, and it presented a most 
 melancholy and neglected sight, though there was, as 
 Treagle said, a very open view from his window, if by that 
 he meant an extensive panorama of cats, alive and dead, 
 brick-bats, decaying vegetable refuse, abandoned sheets of 
 newspaper, empty tins, moribund trees, consumptive shrubs,
 
 TRBAGLE'S FLEETING HONOURS 153 
 
 and grass that would make any respectable animal shudder ; 
 the whole being kept more or less in bounds by iron rail- 
 ings, of which a good many had yielded to the ravages of 
 time, aided by the importunity of the youths of the neigh- 
 bourhood, and disappeared. 
 
 Treagle shared a very small sitting-room and bedroom 
 with a young friend named Tucker, who had not gone to 
 the entertainment that evening because his occupation, 
 whatever it was, kept him too late. He was a nice-looking 
 lad, and had a profound admiration for Treagle, and 
 especially of his dramatic talents. 
 
 On a very small table stood a very large pork-pie, a 
 great chunk of bread, and a colossal can of porter, and, as 
 local newspapers say, when describing a dinner at the Bull's 
 Head, covers were laid for three. The pork-pie was then 
 cut by Treagle into three parts, the bread similarly divided, 
 and the can of porter passed round so regularly that one 
 head seemed to be nearly always inside it and the other 
 two waiting for their turn to disappear in like fashion. 
 
 Middle-aged or elderly reader, think of it ! Think of 
 consuming a huge wedge of pork-pie and a lump of bread, 
 and putting your head into a can of porter at twelve o'clock 
 at night, and then retaining any hope of surviving till the 
 next morning. Think of the nauseating struggle to get 
 down Pentonville pork-pie at all, and at any hour, and 
 above all at that hour. Think of the consequences of 
 taking deep draughts of porter — don't misunderstand me, 
 I say porter, and I mean porter as black as your hat, 
 referring of course to your Sunday best hat. But we 
 three young men did it, and enjoyed it, and laughed over 
 it, and had no fear that when we rose in the morning we 
 should all be dead men. And then we smoked tobacco
 
 154 TREAGLE'S FLEETING HONOURS 
 
 on the top of it, and not one of us so much as turned pale 
 or had a pain anywhere, or felt a bit the worse next day. 
 Middle-aged or elderly reader, I mingle my tears with yours 
 (whether my own tears are middle-aged or elderly boots 
 not as long as they are copious, and I assure you they are), 
 and sing a dirge with you over the days of ostrich digestion 
 that are no more, and I express an earnest hope that you 
 can still occasionally eat oysters late at night, and don't 
 mind the expense. 
 
 But passing away from vain regrets to historical facts, 
 let me record that before we settled down to supper Tucker 
 began a fire of eager questions about the play in general, 
 and Treagle's own part in particular. He addressed him- 
 self at first to Treagle, but that distinguished actor pointed 
 to me, and with a slight return of the baronet manner told 
 him to "ask young Turner there." So I said all over 
 again very much what I had said before in the street, and 
 Tucker followed with a running fire of admiring comments 
 and questions, such as, "I knew he would do that well," 
 and " Was he very fine in that bit where he chucks up the 
 countess?" and "Isn't he good in that scene with his 
 mother, when he won't believe what she tells him?" It 
 appeared that his familiarity with the piece resulted from 
 his having heard Treagle his part, of which service he was 
 most refreshingly proud. I wonder what Tucker's terms 
 would be for hearing anybody the same part now in small 
 Pentonville lodgings at all sorts of late evening hours. 
 
 I don't know how long the catechism might have lasted 
 but for the fact that I was very hungry, and at last gave 
 such piteous glances at the pork-pie, that even Treagle's 
 tickled vanity could not resist my mute appeal, and he 
 summoned us to the feast. We talked of course then, but
 
 TREACLE'S FLEETING HONOURS 155 
 
 only in broken sentences. You cannot utter many pregnant 
 remarks with your head in a can of porter, or a large piece 
 of pork-pie in course of transit. 
 
 And then — bless us and save us — we positively worked 
 off more exuberance of youth by playing " nap," and I am 
 afraid we played for money ; but my reader will be relieved 
 to hear that we played for very little money, not being any 
 of us millionaires, but on the contrary as poor as rats, and 
 all of us afflicted at the time with a very acute form of what 
 Treagle called "Shorts," and, as a literal fact, I rose a 
 heated winner of ninepence, which Treagle and Tucker 
 lost to me in about equal proportions ; I say I rose, and 
 indeed it was about time I did, for the night was far 
 advanced, and I had a long way to go. But I was proud of 
 staying up very late in those days on special occasions, and 
 I bragged insufferably about it in the office next day, and I 
 fear added at least an hour to the true reckoning of time. 
 
 So the thirty-shilling-a-week clerk was for one evening 
 at all events a baronet, and also a great actor in his own 
 eyes and in mine. I do not know whether the memory of 
 it was comforting or bitter to him afterwards, but I do 
 know that on the very next day Treagle was addressed by 
 one of the partners in the following incisive terms : " Mr. 
 Treagle, there is not one single word right in this from 
 beginning to end. Whatever I give you to do, I have to 
 give to somebody else afterwards to do over again. You 
 either have no brains or you don't try to use them. You 
 are the most careless and incompetent clerk I have ever 
 had to do with, and why we keep you I really don't know, 
 and I don't suppose you could tell me yourself." 
 
 Sic transit gloria mundi.
 
 ( 156 ) 
 
 THE CREDULITY OF LAWYERS 
 
 I SUPPOSE that if I were to describe lawyers as a credulous 
 and soft-hearted class of the community the observation 
 would be received with derisive laughter from all parts of 
 the house ; and I suppose also that if that statement were to 
 carry conviction — which I neither expect nor desire for a 
 moment — I should, vulgarly speaking, be giving away the 
 show and stripping off some part at least of the feeling of 
 awe with which members of the profession are regarded by 
 the British public. Nevertheless I do say it, and I am 
 prepared to prove it. 
 
 No class of the community is more easily taken in by 
 arts of imposture as transparent as those of the elderly 
 gentlemen who, when walking in the streets of London — 
 Kensington preferred, but I don't know why — places his 
 hand suddenly to his forehead, calls out loudly as one in 
 pain, sinks by easy stages to the pavement, and then with 
 the aid of a piece of soap proceeds to foam at the mouth. 
 If not interrupted rudely by a policeman he reaps on these 
 occasions a considerable harvest, beginning with a gift in 
 kind in the shape of brandy, and finishing with sympathetic 
 offerings of silver. Parenthetically, I may remark that I 
 was once a donor of brandy to this elderly person, and on 
 another occasion I was about to take part in the silver 
 stage of donations when a member of the force appeared,
 
 THE CREDULITY OF LAWYERS 157 
 
 and, looking down upon the prostrate sufferer, he remarked, 
 " What, at it again, old Jimmy ! " These simple words had 
 a startling effect on the sick man, and he did not even wait 
 for the collection, and probably pursued his virtuous calling 
 on the other side of Hyde Park for some time afterwards. 
 
 My illustration has, of course, merely shown me up 
 personally in the light of a flat, or, as the next generation 
 after mine would render it, a mug, and one idiot does not 
 make an Earlswood Asylum, but I am now coming to real 
 business, and I resort again to illustration as the most 
 effective, not to say graphic, way of proving my case. 
 Some years ago a tall, cadaverous-looking man was brought 
 into my presence as being introduced by relations of mine 
 who were practising as solicitors in a large provincial town, 
 I will not say that my heart fluttered in the expectation of 
 lucrative business, because fortune does not usually come 
 by that sort of route, but the mention of my relatives was 
 at least a pass to my good graces. My visitor began by 
 claiming them as old acquaintances, and, having broken the 
 ice he told me that he was a solicitor, but that his health 
 had broken down and he was obliged to go to Australia, 
 where he hoped to re-establish it, and also to make a pro- 
 fessional living. He mentioned the name of the place, 
 which I had never heard of before, but as I plead guilty to 
 the darkest ignorance of geography nothing turned upon 
 that, and he expressed a hope that if I ever needed the 
 assistance of a correspondent in that direction I would 
 bear him in mind. The odds against my having any such 
 need were at least a million to one, but I politely told him 
 that I should be happy to note his name and address, 
 though I feared it was not a very likely contingency.
 
 158 THE CREDULITY OF LAWYERS 
 
 This would seem a natural termination to a brief inter- 
 view that if not lucrative was also not painful. But it 
 was nothing of the sort. My visitor produced a book 
 with a black leather cover, and said that many mem- 
 bers of the legal profession had expressed a wish to assist 
 him in his new start in life, and he thought I might possibly 
 like to add my name to those in the book. I opened it, 
 and there, beyond all possible manner of doubt, were the 
 names of many eminent barristers and leading firms of 
 solicitors who had subscribed to the good cause. Many of 
 the signatures were well known to me, and among them my 
 visitor did not omit to point out those of my country 
 relatives. 
 
 This imposing lead in professional charity was far too 
 overpowering for me to do otherwise than follow it, and I 
 added my humble name and my modest subscription, and 
 my visitor melted with the book and the money, and bade 
 me an airy colonial sort of farewell. 
 
 Time passed on, and a year or more had elapsed, during 
 which I had forgotten the existence of my cadaverous 
 friend, when, to my great surprise, his name was brought 
 in to me again, and a faint suspicion of whisky seemed to 
 float in at the same time. He felt, I suppose, that a rather 
 awkward gap had to be bridged over, so he plunged t'n 
 medias res with easy assurance that would have done credit 
 to Alfred Jingle. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Turner, I have just called to tell you that at 
 last I am really starting." 
 
 I intimated rather coldly that I had understood him to 
 have one foot on the shore and the other on the briny 
 ocean when I had had the pleasure of seeing him a con-
 
 THE CREDULITY OF LAWYERS 159 
 
 siderable time before, and that I had contributed to his 
 expenses upon that supposition. 
 
 " And so I was — everything packed up and passage 
 taken. And then I had a great misfortune. I was riding 
 on the top of an omnibus, and was just going to get down 
 when I tripped and fell right into the road and broke my 
 leg. I was laid up in the hospital for nine months, and 
 when I came out I was too weak to travel, and have only 
 just pulled round, and it has taken away nearly all my 
 money, but, thank God, I am really off at last this time, 
 and a great many gentlemen in the profession are very 
 kindly helping me to go." 
 
 Out came the black-covered book again, and as sure as 
 eggs were eggs I found another long list of well-known pro- 
 fessional names — mostly the same as those in the first 
 edition. 
 
 Think of the ludicrous improbability of the story : the 
 melting away of fund No. i ; the absence of any evidence 
 whatsoever that this accident had ever happened, or if it 
 had, that it had exhausted the fund subscribed ; the match- 
 less impudence of milking the same legal cow again with 
 the same story, and no new feature but a broken leg ; the 
 utter absence of any single, reliable fact to justify the 
 pouring of guineas into this man's lap. I am asserting a 
 general proposition, and the question of my personal con- 
 duct is of no moment, but as a matter of fact, at the second 
 time of asking, my gorge fairly rose, and I flatly declined to 
 be bled. My visitor expressed surprise and even grief for 
 me that I should be so hard hearted, as indeed he well 
 might, considering the number of legal gudgeon he had 
 landed with apparent ease on this second occasion, and the
 
 i6o THE CREDULITY OF LAWYERS 
 
 unfavourable contrast from his point of view between their 
 conduct and mine. 
 
 It is superfluous to say that I did not receive a third visit 
 from this person, nor did I ever hear anything more about 
 him ; but I have often wondered whether he afterwards 
 broke successively the other leg, and both arms, and his 
 collar bone, and then injured himself internally, and then 
 went round his limbs again, and then had a succession of 
 serious illnesses ; and whether on each occasion his start 
 for Australia was delayed for one year, his funds exhausted, 
 and a fresh list of subscriptions started in the book with 
 the black cover. Anyhow, I had figured once in that book 
 in the character of a subscriber, and then in another sense 
 I got into his black book again. There is a play upon 
 words concealed so effectually in the last sentence, that I 
 fear it might not be noted if I did not draw attention to it, 
 and on principle I do not like flowers to blush unseen. 
 
 My next illustration is drawn from the East — not my more 
 or less native Whitechapel, but the real article. 
 
 I was seated one day at my office engaged in my usual 
 task of imitating the busy bee so far as it was possible to do 
 it in the absence of any shining hour to improve, the period 
 being February. To me was brought in a slip with an 
 Oriental name on it, unknown to me, but of such length 
 that to suspect behind it a desire to sell me carpets or 
 pirated photographs would have been sheer impiety. The 
 owner was admitted, and proved to be in appearance a 
 young and particularly good-looking native of India, hailing 
 from Bombay. He introduced himself as the son of a 
 native judge, brother of an articled pupil in a well-known 
 firm of Bombay solicitors with whom I had business rela-
 
 THE CREDULITY OP LAWYERS i6i 
 
 tions, and an intimate friend of all the partners in that firm, 
 and of one in particular who was rather dearer to him than 
 life. He then unfolded the following touching story. By 
 reason of family influence and a good knowledge of lan- 
 guages (he certainly spoke English as well as I did), he had 
 secured an appointment as secretary to an Indian Rajah 
 who had undertaken a tour in Europe. But as ill-fortune 
 would have it my young visitor had contracted a severe 
 illness while his employer was in Paris, and was so com- 
 pletely invalided that the Rajah was obliged to leave him 
 behind there and proceed on his tour minus his secretary. 
 The Rajah had left a liberal provision for his needs, but 
 the illness had lasted so long that by the time he was 
 able to leave Paris his funds were all but exhausted, and 
 he had now come over to London almost penniless, until 
 he could get remittances, and was unable to communicate 
 with the Rajah for divers very satisfactory reasons, and 
 among others that the latter was now on the high seas. 
 To verify his respectability he produced a letter from the 
 India Office written on the official paper, which contained 
 some sort of description of him in the nature of a testi- 
 monial to his virtues. 
 
 He told me that in calling on me he had two favours to 
 ask. One was that I would be so kind as to procure for 
 him admission to the House of Commons, as he was most 
 anxious to hear a debate. The other was that I would 
 advance him a few pounds to carry him over his temporary 
 exhaustion of funds, with an assurance that I would 
 get it back from the firm of solicitors in Bombay, who 
 would instantly reimburse any advance made to him. 
 
 In self-defence I feel bound to maintain that the story
 
 i62 THE CREDULITY OF LAWYERS 
 
 was plausible, and the anxiety expressed to gain admission 
 to the House of Commons, as being the more important 
 request, a stroke of genius and a spoon-bait of surpassing 
 attraction. The young man left with an advance, the 
 amount of which I decline to mention, and a promise 
 to get him an order for the House of Commons. He was 
 to call for it on a day agreed. 
 
 The child of the East duly turned up for the House 
 of Commons order. I was out at the time and he saw 
 a junior partner of mine, to whom I had told the story. 
 He got the order and he likewise got a further advance. 
 By a pleasing fiction I have always persuaded myself that 
 if I had been in he would not have got that second 
 advance, but I am quite sure he would all the same. 
 
 I wrote out to Bombay in due course describing what 
 had occurred, mentioning the advances, and expressing 
 the pleasure it had afforded me to help their young friend 
 in his emergency. I did not ask that the cheque to re- 
 imburse my advance might be accompanied by some- 
 thing in the way of a chased silver ornament for the 
 dinner-table, which I should have personally taken home, 
 as a chased silver ornament cannot be divided with junior 
 partners, but the thought did cross my mind that it would 
 be a gracious recognition of my goodness. 
 
 While yet my letter was on its way to Bombay, or at all 
 events before the answer came, I took up a newspaper, and 
 my eye lighted on an account of a misfortune which had 
 befallen my young friend, and was recorded, I grieve to 
 say, not in the fashionable or miscellaneous intelligence, 
 but in the police news. He had obtained advances from 
 several other solicitors by exactly parallel devices, with
 
 THE CREDULITY OF LAWYERS 163 
 
 appropriate alterations of names and places to suit the par- 
 ticular victim, and was pursuing a successful if not meri- 
 torious career. But it came to pass that he presented 
 himself at the office of a solicitor who had relations with 
 a firm m Calcutta, and he played off the Calcutta firm 
 exactly as he had in my case traced his visit to my connec- 
 tion with a Bombay firm. All might have answered his best 
 expectations but for the unfortunate circumstance that a 
 member of the Calcutta firm was in London at the time, 
 and not only in London, but at that identical moment in 
 the office of his London correspondents on whom the 
 young man had called. The India Office paper had been 
 stolen by this hopeful youth when paying visits there for 
 imaginary objects^ and the official description of his merits 
 was really autobiographical an*^ more inaccurate even than 
 most autobiographies ; the Rajah was a fiction, and the 
 law Hst had furnished the necessary Hnks between solicitors 
 in London and firms in India for whom they acted as 
 agents. 
 
 The result was eighteen months with hard labour for the 
 deceitful youth, and for me and several other solicitors 
 the abstraction of coin made by hard labour, though not 
 exactly of the same kind. 
 
 Though it has nothing to do with the serious and import- 
 ant subject to which this paper is directed, it might interest 
 my readers, whom I number by thousands in my imagina- 
 tion, to know that, very shortly after partaking of skilly and 
 performing hard labour for the allotted period, this adven. 
 turous youth started exactly the same method of gaining 
 a livelihood, but varied the procedure by addressing his 
 attentions to merchants in London with Indian connec-
 
 i64 THE CREDULITY OF LAWYERS 
 
 tions. Fortune was again unkind, and he was for a second 
 time sentenced to a considerable term of imprisonment. 
 I do not know what his subsequent career has been, but 
 his genius may have found an outlet in the direction of 
 certain classes of financial operations connected with com- 
 panies which are said to offer a very promising field to 
 clever people. 
 
 Each of the twd examples I have given has shown up 
 the credulity of a considerable number of lawyers. The 
 first was a barefaced imposture, of which the repeti- 
 tion, with a broken leg thrown in, was too impudent 
 for words to describe it. The second was not quite 
 so transparent, but still, to the intelligent reader, half- 
 a-dozen inquiries will occur that should obviously have 
 been made before coin of the realm was parted with, and 
 any one of which would have exposed the swindle. I do 
 not recall any more illustrations of the same wholesale 
 nature, but I proceed to put myself in the pillory as a 
 personal example of a lawyer taken in on innumerable 
 occasions, and I venture to maintain that, even if all 
 lawyers are not such boneless sardines as I am in the way 
 of detecting imposture, still I do not figure in a class by 
 myself. 
 
 I have provided the alleged son of an alleged Russian 
 nihilist, alleged to be named Nicolaieff, with a guinea to 
 get his alleged dress-clothes out of alleged pawn, in order 
 to take up an alleged place as head waiter at an alleged 
 hotel ; and I have found, too late, that men betray, and 
 that there were no dress-clothes, and no pawning, and no 
 head waiter's place, and no hotel. 
 
 I have advised a person bringing a bogus introduction
 
 THE CREDULITY OF LAWYERS 165 
 
 upon some ridiculous point, for a fee that was never paid, 
 and have concluded the interview by putting my name 
 down in a binding form as subscriber for some monumental 
 work costing several pounds, that I did not want in the 
 least, and have never opened since it was delivered at my 
 gates. 
 
 I have known a fluent German to get past the barriers 
 into my room, under pretence of being a client who must 
 see me on important private business, and I have then 
 learnt that his object was merely to sell me bad hock. And 
 I have bought it. But, as I am a sinful man, I have never 
 given it to my friends, 
 
 I have lent money, not as a scrivener, or an usurer, or 
 a money-lender, but without interest, and merely as a 
 donkey, to men who have either looked me in the face for 
 years afterwards with the blandest affectation of not re- 
 membering the circumstance, or have treated me as a deadly 
 enemy to be avoided in the market-place and all other 
 places, and who, in both cases alike, have never so much as 
 hinted at the paltry and contemptible idea of repaying me. 
 
 I have bought engravings, portraits, models in miniature 
 of ships, and ditto of cathedrals, and water-colours — in- 
 different in merit and expensive as regards price — from 
 bibulous vendors who have piled up imaginary starving 
 families for my edification, and who have virtually besieged 
 me till I yielded, because I had not the moral courage to 
 kick them out, or call for help, or because — yes, I will 
 keep back nothing — because I have been taken in about 
 the starving family until I have really thought quietly over 
 the man's face afterwards, and realised the depth of my 
 own muggery — if I may be allowed to coin a word, as a
 
 l66 THE CREDULITY OF LAWYERS 
 
 very small set-off against coin that has been expended in 
 the way I have described. 
 
 I have forgiven people who have robbed me, when I 
 ought, on every principle as a good citizen, to have prose- 
 cuted them, merely because female lelatives (not in the 
 least prepossessing in appearance, and affording me no 
 excuse on that ground) have called on me, dressed in 
 mourning, as if it were a funeral, and blubbered, and 
 shown an alarming tendency to kneel on my carpet and 
 clasp my knees. 
 
 In short, I have been taken in on every side. The 
 most transparent device has been good enough to catch 
 me ; the most barefaced imposter has gulled me ; the most 
 audacious borrower has found his way to my pocket as 
 easily as if he were gently passing to it along a butter-slide ; 
 the most unscrupulous vendor of worthless articles has, 
 with the aid of a little touch of domestic misery thrown in, 
 found me a sure heap on which to shoot rubbish. And if 
 you think, dear reader, that I must indeed be a colossal 
 Mug, let me declare to you that I have many professional 
 brethren, I will not say mugger, but at least as muggy as 
 I am. 
 
 Did I say as I am ? It was a slip of the pen, for I meant 
 to say as I was. I have learnt my lesson at last, and no 
 rogues or vagabonds need apply to me. I have locked up 
 my heart, buttoned my pockets, established a system of 
 sentinels to guard my room. I have decided never again 
 to give anything to anybody, deserving or undeserving, in 
 any possible circumstances, to turn away with anathemas 
 from would-be borrowers, to believe no tales of distress, to 
 purchase no more pretended works of art, bad wine, or
 
 THE CREDULITY OF LAWYERS 167 
 
 serial volumes sold by means of canvassing, to prosecute 
 anybody who abstracts from me as much as a postage 
 stamp. In short, I have at last become what a lawyer 
 with a character for acuteness and worldly wisdom to lose 
 really ought to be. It is never too late to mend.
 
 ( i68 ) 
 
 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE 
 MORNING 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 As a type of prosperity and distinction in life, justly won 
 by commanding ability and sheer hard work, James 
 Ferguson, Q.C, M.P., would have been difficult to beat. 
 He had begun life as one of several sons of a not too 
 successful doctor. He had gone to a London school 
 where the fees were small and the prizes rich, and had 
 carried off to the University of Oxford enough money in 
 scholarships to support him while there, with the aid of 
 rigid economy and self-denial on his own part. He had 
 gained a Fellowship and saved enough out of it to pay the 
 fees for his admission to the Bar, and his preparation for 
 the practice of that profession. He had got into good 
 practice without having to wait very long, though he did 
 not possess a particle of influence with solicitors, which is 
 the only influence worth two and sixpence to a barrister. 
 And from that time he had never looked back, but had 
 risen, risen, always risen, until now he was at the very top 
 of the very highest tree that a successful barrister can 
 climb, and that is a pretty tall tree I can tell you. If I 
 were to try and tell you how tall, it would make your mouth 
 water with envy as it does mine.
 
 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 169 
 
 Even that was not all, for he had not only got into 
 Parliament, but unlike most lawyers in the House of 
 Commons, he was credited with having convictions, and 
 not with having merely put on a party livery in the hope 
 of exchanging it for an ermine robe ; and when he spoke, 
 the House did not immediately become reduced in number 
 to six members exclusive of the Speaker. This is, I 
 believe, a high standard to reach in that assembly, wherein 
 nevertheless there appears to be much cry and little wool. 
 
 He had a house in London, a house in the country, a 
 moor in Scotland, a yacht, horses, men servants and maid 
 servants, much gold and silver ; indeed, saving for some 
 Oriental arrangements not permitted in the present day, 
 the description of Solomon's possessions might have been 
 almost applied to him. He would, no doubt, also have 
 had several motor cars capable of going at the rate of an 
 express train in crowded streets, and doing so whenever 
 the police were not in sight, but that form of delight was 
 not yet invented. 
 
 He had married comparatively early in life. It was a 
 love match pure and simple, and the love had proved to be 
 of an enduring kind, for Mr. Ferguson and his wife were 
 lovers still at sixty years of age. A more devoted couple 
 could not be imagined, and is very rarely seen. 
 
 But his domestic life was clouded by one great abiding 
 trouble. He had only one child, a son, and that son was 
 a drunken, disreputable blackguard. There was no other 
 word for him. 
 
 Brought up kindly but not too indulgently, with every 
 advantage of training and education that loving parental 
 care could provide, with every legitimate advantage and
 
 170 THE JOY THAT CAME IN^.THE MORNING 
 
 attraction that life could offer spread out before him, he 
 had deliberately, wantonly, preferred the gutter, and he 
 wallowed in it. 
 
 His father and mother had tried to reclaim him with the 
 infinite patience that in this world only parents are gene- 
 rally capable of showing. Persuasion, entreaty, prayers 
 had been lavished on him ; safeguards had been built 
 round him ; he had been forgiven seventy times seven ; 
 his debts, all incurred in wanton and riotous living, had 
 been paid over and over again. But it was all in vain, 
 and every time he was lifted out of the mud he just slid 
 back into it again, deeper and ever deeper. 
 
 It is said by the charitably minded that the very worst 
 of human beings is not all bad, but possesses some redeem- 
 ing feature, or at least some good quality. To find any 
 good quality in Arthur Ferguson was extremely difficult, 
 but if he possessed one at all, it was a certain amiability 
 of disposition that never deserted him. Drunk or ?ober he 
 was always good tempered, and preserved a semblance of 
 polite and even courtly manners, that when he was drunk 
 was both ludicrous and horrible to contemplate. But his 
 good temper was to the poor wretch but an added source 
 of weakness and depravity, because it predisposed him 
 always to say yes to every low companion who beckoned 
 to him to follow, and to become the paymaster and ready 
 dupe of the infamous crew among whom he had cast in 
 his lot. It was only too well known among his associates 
 that while Ferguson had a sovereign in his pocket no throat 
 belonging to a friend of his need be dry with thirst, and 
 no such detestable throat was ever dry in those circum- 
 stances. He had gone into the army by his own desire.
 
 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 171 
 
 and had got into and through Sandhurst, not with credit, 
 but still he had scraped through, his record at that time 
 showing much that was disquieting, but not giving promise 
 of what was to follow. But military life in the English 
 army allows idleness and enough to spare to the idly-dis- 
 posed officer, and Arthur Ferguson was first idle, then 
 vicious, then impossible as a British officer, and was only 
 allowed to send in his papers at an hour's notice, with the 
 alternative of being cashiered. From that moment he had 
 descended at the rate of a hydraulic lift to perdition. 
 
 At what sacrifice to themselves of comfort and appear- 
 ance and almost of outward family decency only they knew 
 in bitter grief and shame, his father and mother had always 
 kept their house open to Arthur when he would come and 
 live there, in the faint hope that it might bring about 
 better things, and he would come when he had not a 
 shilling left in the world, and would otherwise have spent 
 a night on a bench in the Park. Sometimes his arrival 
 would take place in the middle of the night in a hansom 
 cab, on which occasions there would be a ringing and 
 disturbance at the door, and an altercation with the 
 cabman, who had been driving him about from one evil 
 haunt to another for hours, and whom he would have no 
 money to pay. And then Warner the butler, an old 
 servant who loved his master and mistress, and whose 
 heart ached for them and also for the reprobate, whom he 
 remembered as a fair-haired, bright-eyed boy, would come 
 down quietly and pay the man and help the miserable 
 wretch into the house and up to his own room, in his 
 frowsy muddy clothes and battered-in hat, and whisper 
 to him to " Go quietly, for God's sake, Mr. Arthur," and
 
 172 THE JOY THAT CAAfE IN THE MORNING 
 
 not wake up his poor father and mother, as they were 
 asleep. Wake them up indeed ! Not a sound escaped 
 them ; and James Ferguson's hand would steal softly 
 towards his wife and stroke her tearful face gently to 
 comfort her, and he would say to her with heart-breaking 
 sorrow gnawing at his own breast, " Don't cry, dear, pray, 
 don't cry ; perhaps this time he will stay quietly at home 
 and turn over a new leaf." And she would strive hard 
 to keep back the tears for the sake of her beloved husband, 
 because she knew so well that her grief added a bitter 
 pang to his. 
 
 After such an incident as this the stricken parents would 
 leave their wretched son alone all the next day, knowing 
 full well that Warner would look after him faithfully until 
 he recovered to some extent from this the latest orgie, and 
 that he would send for the family doctor, as he had 
 standing orders to do if necessary. It was often necessary, 
 for apart from the inroads that his mode of life made on 
 his health, it was not unusual for Arthur to come back 
 to the home he disgraced with marks on him of some 
 drunken struggle or foul play. 
 
 On one occasion Arthur had returned after an unusually 
 long absence. When he reached home he had not a penny 
 on him, his watch and chain had gone, and even his studs 
 and sleeve-links out of the shirt he was wearing, and his 
 condition otherwise was, if possible, worse than usual. 
 Warner saw the next morning on going into his room that 
 he was really ill, and at once went for the doctor, who 
 found him in a serious state. He had not actually had a 
 paralytic seizure, but there were distinct threatenings of it. 
 
 The doctor had long given up hope of his reformation,
 
 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 173 
 
 but he seized this opportunity to try and frighten him. 
 He had attended the family ever since Arthur's birth, and 
 was deeply sorry for the home trouble. 
 
 "Arthur," he said solemnly, "you are very ill, and at 
 any moment I might have to say very dangerously ill. 
 You have outraged your constitution so long that the 
 time has come for its inevitable revenge on you. No 
 regard for the father and mother whose hearts you are 
 breaking has had any effect upon you, but I have some- 
 thing to say that may perhaps make you pause. Your 
 present symptoms tell me beyond a shadow of doubt 
 that if you go on leading the same life you will not live 
 another twelve months. You must, whether you will or 
 not, remain quietly here and in bed for many days. Think 
 over what I have said, and try to realise what it is that 
 you have been doing, and to what certain end it is bringing 
 you, and what is the hereafter that you will have to face 
 with such a life as yours to give an account for." 
 
 Arthur was cowed. The doctor had often warned him, 
 but never in such words as these. He could forget both 
 time and eternity when the bottle was going round and he 
 was among his friends — save the mark — and his brain was 
 whirling with the excitement of drink and profligacy ; but 
 to be told quietly and firmly, as he lay there in his own 
 bed under his father's roof, with no drink to madden him, 
 no seven devils worse than himself to tear him away from 
 thought, no vision before him but the panorama of his own 
 hideous past, to be told then, and to feel himself that the 
 hand of death was creeping on him, and that one finger 
 had already touched him, this came home to him, and 
 caused him to feel a strange cold shrinking.
 
 174 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 
 
 " You don't make a fellow feel very cheerful, doctor," he 
 said, after a pause, " but what's the odds ! I suppose I'm 
 not the only chap who's gone to the devil ; and, perhaps, 
 the devil is not such a bad sort as the parsons make out." 
 
 He said it, or rather tried to say it, in a light and easy 
 way; not rudely, for he was never rude to anybody, whether 
 drunk or sober, but in a way to show that he was not 
 frightened, and, on the contrary, as he would have put it, 
 game. But the words sounded as hollow as a coffin, and 
 the attempt at bravado was a dismal failure. That cold 
 finger was upon him, and he felt it to his very marrow. 
 
 The doctor told his mother of Arthur's condition, that 
 he must be regarded as really ill, and watched accordingly. 
 Though she was anxious, a secret joy rose within her 
 mother's heart. This illness must keep Arthur at home, it 
 must bring him under her influence ; it rjiust keep his 
 sinful life clean and separate him from his horrible com- 
 panions. It must do that ; and it might — it might — be a 
 turning-point in his life. 
 
 She nursed and tended him devotedly, and he was so 
 grateful, so humbly thankful for everything done for him ; 
 so considerate and tender to her and to his father, so 
 different in his time of weakness from the son they had 
 mourned over, that her hopes for him grew daily, and she 
 was happier in her mind about this — her only child — than 
 she had been for years; and Mr. Ferguson, if not sanguine, 
 because he was an experienced man of the world, would 
 not, for any consideration, have said anything to dash her 
 hopes. He feared much what would happen when his son 
 recovered, but even he hoped a little. 
 
 Arthur grew steadily better, and the symptoms that had
 
 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 175 
 
 alarmed the doctor slowly passed away. And as his strength 
 came back, the doctor's warning began to grow dim — the 
 peace and restfulness of home, and of a mother's care, 
 began to cloy ; and then there came a craving for drink, 
 and for the kind of companionship to which he had given 
 his life. And then one day, when convalescent, he went 
 out, as he said, for a little walk, gaily promising his anxious 
 mother to be back in an hour ; but he did not come in an 
 hour, or a day, or a week ; and when he did come, it was 
 in the small hours of the morning, and Warner had to carry 
 him upstairs. And then his father and mother gave up all 
 hope. 
 
 It was just at this time that Alice Lennox arrived on a 
 long visit ; and Mr. Ferguson rejoiced to know that his wife 
 would have her companionship, as it would give her some 
 distraction from her own sad thoughts. Alice was the only 
 daughter of a first cousin of Mrs. Ferguson. Her mother 
 bad died many years ago, and she had since then been the 
 d^. voted companion of her father, of whom she had taken 
 such entire charge that he called her his little mother. Now, 
 not long since, he had died in India, where she had been 
 with him at the time, as, indeed, she had been in all places 
 whither he went on business or pleasure. He had been 
 able to leave her a sufficient provision to make her com- 
 fortable in means, but not wealthy, and she had returned 
 to England to make her own life under the new conditions. 
 She was about thirty years old and unmarried — not un- 
 married for want of suitors, but because nothing would 
 induce her to leave her father, or interfere with her whole- 
 souled devotion to him. She was not what would be called 
 a pretty woman, and yet no one looked at her once who
 
 176 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 
 
 did not want to look a second time. She was tall and 
 shapely for one thing. For another thing, she had a wealth 
 of auburn hair, and a pair of very expressive grey eyes — 
 eyes that had a calm, steady look in them. Her forehead 
 was lofty — too lofty for accepted views of feminine beauty, 
 the nose well shape, and her mouth, though small, had a 
 very decided look about it. The chin also was rather 
 masculine, perhaps, in its firm outline. The effect she 
 produced as a whole was that of a woman who had a mind ; 
 who knew what she wanted, and why she wanted it, and 
 meant to have it ; whose ideas of duty would be of the 
 highest, who would be a true and steady friend, who would 
 hate meanness and despise vice in every form, and would 
 not be very tolerant of empty-headed men and silly women; 
 and yet was far, very far, from being that unspeakably 
 terrible product of modern times — a woman who wants to 
 be thought a man, and tries to dress and act the part. 
 She was only a highly-cultivated type of a very good and 
 sensible woman, and withal very pleasant to look upon. 
 
 She had always kept up a correspondence with Mrs. 
 Ferguson, to whom she had been greatly attached since 
 childhood, though she had been little in England since 
 then ; and the Fergusons' house was opened to her im- 
 mediately after her father's death, with a warm and earnest 
 request that she would make it her home until her own 
 plans were finally settled, and the longer the better. 
 
 When she had last seen Arthur, who was two or three 
 years older than herself, he was a big schoolboy, with 
 charming manners, and the soul of easy good-nature. 
 What he had become since she had more or less read 
 between the lines of Mrs. Ferguson's letters, whose refer-
 
 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 177 
 
 ences to him had been very sad, but very restrained. 
 What he was now she saw for herself on the occasion of 
 his first return home after the break-out which I have just 
 described ; for she had actually arrived in the interval 
 between his leaving home that time and coming back 
 again. 
 
 He had been told of her coming visit, but it did not 
 interest him. Why should it, considering the chosen com- 
 pany that constituted his society ? He hardly remembered 
 her indeed. 
 
 The first meeting took place on the stairs as he was 
 coming down late on the afternoon following this last dis- 
 graceful return to his father's house. Strange to say, the 
 alarming symptoms had not returned this time in spite of 
 the life he had been leading during the last few days, 
 probably because of the medical and nursing skill bestowed 
 on him during his unusually long stay at home ; and after a 
 long sleep (if the time occupied in becoming sober could 
 be called sleep), and a restoration of decent apparel, 
 always kept at home for him, and other measures in which 
 Warner had only too good reason to be proficient, he looked 
 quite presentable. But his eyes were bloodshot — young 
 though he still was, there were puffy, unhealthy swellings 
 under them ; his face told many chapters of the story of 
 his life, and was in colour not so much pale as ashen-grey ; 
 and his movements had about them the trembling uncer- 
 tainty and want of control seen only in very old people 
 and in habitual drunkards. Such was Arthur Ferguson as 
 he came upon Alice Lennox. 
 
 She had conceived for him an intense aversion and a 
 profound contempt. His mode of life and the effect it
 
 178 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 
 
 had upon his parents had soon become known to her fully, 
 even during the short time she had been in the house, for 
 conversation with the poor mother had speedily filled in 
 the outlines that had been gathered from her letters. Her 
 sense of duty to parents was, as she had shown in her own 
 life, immensely strong, and she detested this man who had 
 caused such sorrow to his father and mother, and despised 
 him unspeakably for his low and vicious life. 
 
 These feelings were so strong upon her when they met 
 face to face, that she could hardly contain herself or speak 
 civilly to him, though she felt that in his father's house she 
 could not choose but do so. 
 
 When he saw her a little colour — perhaps the ghost of 
 a feeling of shame — came into his face. He would have 
 avoided her if he could, but that was impossible, and so 
 in the gracious manner that never forsook him he held 
 out his tremulous hand and said, " Miss Lennox, I believe. 
 I heard you were coming, and am so glad for my mother's 
 sake" (the words "for my mother's sake" flashed through 
 Alice Lennox's mind with bitter scorn as she thought of 
 what he might have done for his mother's sake, and how 
 he had broken her heart instead), " as she will like to have 
 you with her so much. I believe we are some sort of 
 cousins, aren't we ? " 
 
 " I believe we are," she answered as civilly as she could, 
 but with decided curtness, and she swept past him without 
 more. 
 
 He looked up the stairs after her, as if he would have 
 wished to see her again, then stood for a minute irreso- 
 lutely, and then shrugged his shoulders and went down, 
 saying to himself audibly, *' Rather curious looking woman,
 
 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 179 
 
 but nice face all the same. Didn't seem very sweet on 
 me. Don't see why she should be ; I'm not very sweet 
 on her." And then he laughed in a foolish way, as if the 
 soddened brain had half-developed the idea that he had 
 said something funny. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Arthur kept his room a good deal for the next day or 
 two, and Alice Lennox did not see him, to her great relief. 
 Then he disappeared once again, and Alice saw a cloud on 
 the faces of Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson that told her some- 
 thing of what they were enduring, and made her feeling 
 towards Arthur grow into positive loathing. 
 
 He did not return for several weeks, and they only 
 knew of his existence because of pressing applications for 
 money that came to his father's chambers in the Temple, 
 generally brought by dirty, disreputable messengers, armed 
 with a scrawl from Arthur, whose writing on these occa- 
 sions was only just recognisable. Painful and embarrassing 
 as it was to Mr. Ferguson to receive such embassies at his 
 chambers, he had made it clearly understood that no 
 application from Arthur for money sent to his house would 
 receive attention, and indeed he had threatened in terms, 
 than even Arthur had understood, that if he ever worried 
 his mother in that way his allowance would be cut off 
 altogether. That form of annoyance and grief at least 
 Mr. Ferguson was determined to save her. 
 
 But at last he did come back, and this time not in a 
 cab, but carried on a stretcher. He had been found by a 
 policeman lying on the pavement of a low street in the
 
 i8o THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 
 
 purlieus of Soho, with a crowd round him, some of whom 
 at least would have rifled his pockets as he lay there if 
 there had been anything in them, but his friends had seen 
 to that department before they left him. He was evi- 
 dently very ill as well as very drunk, and seemed to have 
 sustained some hurt, probably in his fall, as he was groan- 
 ing heavily. Assistance was obtained, and he was about 
 to be taken to a hospital when he regained just enough 
 consciousness to give his father's address, and beg to be 
 taken there, and although the police were incredulous at 
 first when he mentioned the address, something in his 
 voice and manner of speech told them that he was what 
 they called a " gent," and they took him there accordingly. 
 
 It was in the early hours of the morning, and Warner, 
 who slept downstairs, heard the ring, and knew at once 
 what it meant. He opened the front door stealthily in 
 the hope of getting Arthur quietly to his room, but he 
 soon found that matters were serious, and was obliged to 
 get the policemen to take their burden upstairs into 
 Arthur's room and to rouse another servant to rush off 
 and summon the doctor, while he got rid of the police 
 and stayed with Arthur. The tramp of the men and 
 Arthur's deep groans speedily roused Mr. and Mrs. 
 Ferguson, and indeed the whole household, and Mr. 
 Ferguson hastily dressed and went to Arthur's room, while 
 Alice Lennox at his request went to his wife to try and 
 calm her until the doctor came and it was known what 
 was really the matter. 
 
 The doctor's verdict was that there were three ribs 
 broken, other le^ serious bodily injuries, and a severe 
 recurrence of tl.j paralytic symptoms that had alarmed
 
 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING i8i 
 
 him before. So Arthur had once more come home to 
 stay, and once more his mother regained possession of 
 him. 
 
 A long and very anxious illness followed, and except for 
 absolutely necessary aid his mother insisted on bearing 
 the burden of nursing Arthur, in spite of all the entreaties 
 of her husband and of Alice Lennox, and even of the 
 doctor. Poor soul, I think she felt that it was only when 
 he was brought thus low and helpless, and cut off by 
 necessity from the foul and noxious surroundings of his 
 ordinary life, that her lost boy came back to her, and she 
 clung to this brief opportunity, almost happy in gaining it, 
 and yet infinitely sad in the certain belief that if he re- 
 covered he would turn from her again. She clung to it 
 the more because now, as always, his graceful, winning ways 
 and words went right to her heart, though whether they 
 came from his was quite another matter. 
 
 Unable to prevent Arthur's mother from undertaking a 
 task that might well be beyond her strength, Alice Lennox, 
 who was a most capable nurse, and whose strong, calm 
 nature was a great source of strength and comfort to Mrs. 
 Ferguson at such a time, determined to save her in every 
 way that was possible. With a fine instinct she carefully 
 avoided even seeming to take the burden upon herself, or 
 to stand between the mother and her still loved son. 
 What she did was in a hundred little ways to save Mrs. 
 Ferguson from fatigue, and relieve her without seeming to 
 do so or ever obtruding herself. And hence it came to 
 pass that very quietly and naturally she too came to be a 
 good deal about the sick-room. 
 
 Arthur was too ill and suffering at first to notice much
 
 1 82 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 
 
 who was about him, but when his splendid constitution 
 began to assert itself, and he gradually mended, he became 
 very conscious indeed of her presence, and his eyes often 
 followed her as she moved about in her quiet, composed 
 way. Oddly enough, she attracted him and frightened him 
 at the same time. He seemed to shrink before her and 
 become conscious of the contempt that she must feel for 
 him. He tried to talk to her, but she always discouraged 
 it, and showed an obvious disinclination to speak to him or 
 be spoken to by him. 
 
 One day when he was beginning to pull round he thanked 
 her for taking so much trouble about him. She answered 
 quietly, but very emphatically, " What little I am able to 
 do I do gladly for the sake of your mother, who sadly over- 
 taxes herself, and makes us very anxious for her." 
 
 It is known that Beelzebub himself when ill is wont to 
 exhibit amiable and even saintly qualities, and no credit 
 need be claimed for Arthur because this observation made 
 him feel, as it did, two things. First, it brought home to 
 him, in a way that genuinely touched him, his mother's 
 unfailing devotion, which he had acknowledged to her 
 indeed in his pleasant, easy way, but without any deep con- 
 sciousness of feeling. And secondly, he was aware that 
 Alice Lennox very pointedly disclaimed any desire to ren- 
 der help to him for his own sake, and this made him feel, 
 as he found himself always doing in her presence, a very 
 despicable being. As she left the room he turned his face 
 towards the wall, and he thought what a low, disreputable 
 brute he was, and how shamefully he had acted to the best 
 of parents. It was a perfectly true reflection, but it was 
 novel to him to look at matters in that light.
 
 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 183 
 
 When his mother came in shortly afterwards he held out 
 his thin hand to her, and said, to her overwhelming sur- 
 prise, " Mother, you're looking dreadfully tired and worn, 
 and it all comes from nursing me. You mustn't do it, 
 dear. I'm not worth it, and not fit to cause you a moment's 
 thought." 
 
 Her tears came fast, and she could not speak at first, 
 but at last she sobbed out, "Oh, my dear, how I wish 
 your poor father could have heard you say that." And 
 then she left the room hurriedly, so as not to agitate him, 
 and when Alice Lennox went to find her not long after- 
 wards in her own room, the poor, heart-broken mother, to 
 whom a faint ray of hope had come, was on her knees, 
 praying through her blinding tears that her only child 
 might yet be spared to be won back to her, cleansed and 
 purified. And Alice put her firm arms round her, and 
 looked into her face with those calm, quiet eyes of hers, full 
 of loving sympathy, and brought comfort to the sorely 
 troubled heart. 
 
 It was noticeable that from that day Arthur tried in 
 every way to spare his mother trouble on his account. 
 He insisted on her taking long spells of rest, and in various 
 little ways showed new-born solicitude. He even spoke to 
 his father, and begged him to use his authority to prevent 
 his mother from overdoing herself. It was the first sign 
 he had ever shown for all these years of real consideration 
 for her, and the strange thing was, that it all flowed from 
 that one sentence of Alice Lennox, which had hit him like 
 a blow. 
 
 Her influence on him was at work in quite another 
 direction. Her quiet, steady face grew upon him as he
 
 1 84 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 
 
 lay therr in bed. He found himself contrasting it with the 
 faces of those among whom he had cast in his evil lot, and 
 shrinking with horror from the comparison. Though he 
 always had that feeling of shame in her presence, he also 
 found himself looking forward to her coming into the room, 
 and was conscious of a sense of void when she left it. He 
 found that, as he grew better, he thought more and more 
 about her, and less and less of the companions whom at 
 other times he would have been restless to rejoin, less and 
 less eager for the life that was waiting for him. Even the 
 craving for drink, though that came upon him at intervals 
 now, seemed less powerful to him than the wish not to 
 disgrace himself in her sight. His anxious parents watched 
 in fear and trembling the approach of convalescence, but 
 no sign appeared at present of his being eager to escape 
 from home, and when he was well enough to be in the air 
 he always, to her unspeakable joy, asked his mother to 
 drive with him. He more than once hinted strongly to 
 her that a drive would also be good for Alice Lennox, 
 who had been so much in the house during his illness ; 
 but Alice always excused herself, knowing full well what 
 a delight it was to Mrs. Ferguson to have Arthur to her- 
 self, and also seeking to avoid him as much as possible, 
 because she had a just but pitiless feeling of resentment 
 towards him on account of the suffering he had caused his 
 parents, and his degraded life. 
 
 " Mother," said Arthur one day during a drive, " I have 
 not seen Coates for years. I wonder if I could go there ? " 
 
 Coates was the name of Mr. Ferguson's country house, 
 which was in a lovely part of Surrey. Mrs. Ferguson's 
 heart stood still with fear that this might mean the first
 
 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 185 
 
 symptom of restlessness that would end in taking Arthur 
 anywhere except to Coates, but her face brightened when 
 he went on, " Of course I shouldn't care to go unless you 
 came too, and Alice Lennox would like the place I am sure 
 if you took her too, and she would be a companion to you." 
 
 This wish of his to return for a while to the quiet 
 country house ia which much of his boyhood had been 
 passed, to return too with her as an indispensable com- 
 panion, brought joy to his mother's heart, and she answered 
 that she felt quite sure his father would spare her to go 
 with him. As for Alice Lennox, his mother was not certain 
 whether she would care to come or whether she would 
 rather pay another visit in London while Mrs. Ferguson 
 was away with Arthur ; but she would ask her, " Or," she 
 added, " why not ask her yourself, Arthur ? " 
 
 " I think you had better do so, mother," he said in a 
 slow, hesitating tone, " I don't think she would care much 
 to come for any request of mine. She has not much 
 reason to think well of me, you see." 
 
 His mother's eyes grew sad. She understood his mean- 
 ing, but she did not understand, she did not even guess, 
 what lay behind it in his heart — a yearning unspeakable 
 that Alice Lennox should think well of him, a deadly fear 
 that she never could or would regard him with anything 
 but contempt and loathing. His sin was just beginning to 
 find him out. It always does, and there is no preacher so 
 shallow, so misguided, so utterly wide of the mark, as he 
 who puts all his force into depicting in lurid terms the 
 punishment of sin as lying beyond the grave, and passes 
 by with scanty mention, or none at all, the bitter retribu- 
 tion that follows evil doing in this present life, sometimes
 
 i86 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 
 
 slowly, sometimes quickly, but always surely. It is an 
 eternal verity that the way of transgressors is hard. For 
 the pure love of a good woman had come into his heart, 
 and as he felt, and knew, and told himself it was too late — 
 too late ! 
 
 Most readily did Mr. Ferguson agree to the proposal. 
 Even he began once again to have a glimmering of hope 
 for his wretched son, and at least he would close no door 
 through which the prodigal might return at last. As for 
 Alice Lennox, she hesitated between aversion from the 
 idea of the closer intercourse with Arthur that would be 
 inevitable in a quiet country house and a strong feeling of 
 loyalty to his mother, a feeling that somehow caused her to 
 look upon the act of backing out as if she were deserting 
 the ship; her presence might, she thought, also possibly 
 have some kind of restraining influence for good on Arthur 
 — she hardly knew how or why, and for his mother's sake 
 she could not bring herself to withdraw from her that aid. 
 So she ultimately decided to go. 
 
 Coates was a very quaint, old country house, and around 
 it were wild commons, and shady lanes, and beauties in- 
 numerable. I would that I could describe them, but I 
 cannot. Alas for the limitations of a brick-and-mortar 
 life ! When I see a tree or flower I don't know its name, 
 and if told it to-day I forget it to-morrow. When I hear a 
 bird sing I don't know what bird it is or why it is singing 
 — whether its trill denotes joy consequent on the capture 
 of an unusually large slug, or an interesting event in the 
 family, or the advent of spring, or indecent triumph over 
 the bird in the next tree because it can't sing so well. 
 The book is closed to me, and the only work of nature
 
 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 187 
 
 about which I have ever been really eloquent was a 
 mosquito that once spent the night in my company. I 
 knew his inmost thoughts by the time we parted, and he 
 knew what it was to be pasted to the wall by a flying shot 
 with the slipper of a desperate man. So I can only say 
 that the country round Coates was very beautiful. 
 
 As Arthur wandered about, feeble still but perceptibly 
 gaining strength, and beginning to look as he had not 
 looked for many a long day before, chords were touched in 
 him that had long been dormant. Every corner brought 
 back some memory of his boyhood — expeditions here and 
 there, favourite trees for climbing, sports lawful and un- 
 lawful, high spirits, rude health, innocent companions. 
 And between then and now — what a scene of desolation and 
 ruin, what ashes in the mouth, what unavailing regrets, 
 what a hopeless barrier between him and anything pure 
 and undefiled, between him and the respect and love of 
 such a woman as Alice Lennox ! 
 
 One morning he had strolled into the garden and he 
 came upon her unawares. She was sitting on a bench 
 reading. He sat beside her, and as he did so it seemed to 
 him that she shrank away, as if fearful that his near presence 
 might contaminate her. It might have been a morbid 
 fancy, for he did not attempt to sit close to her. A fine 
 view of hill and dale, and common carpeted with purple 
 heather, lay stretched before them, and he looked at it for a 
 minute without speaking, and then he said — 
 
 " It is a pretty, peaceful spot, isn't it, Miss Lennox ? " 
 
 " Very." 
 
 " It does one good somehow to look at it — makes one 
 feel better in spirit as well as in body."
 
 1 88 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 
 
 She said nothing. 
 
 And then a thought came into his mind, and it seemed 
 to carry him right away so that he was forced to utter it, 
 and yet hardly rcaHsed what he was saying — 
 
 " If such an influence as that can move even such 
 a man as I am, what might it not be to me if another 
 influence came into my life — the influence of loving a good, 
 pure, high-minded woman such as you are, and having her 
 respect and love in return." 
 
 Alice Lennox rose. She coloured deeply for a moment, 
 for it was impossible not to see that his words meant a 
 declaration of love for her. Then she turned upon him, 
 almost fiercely, with flashing eyes, and the pent-up scorn 
 and contempt that she had been smothering for his 
 mother's sake, and because she was his father's guest, 
 burst out in a torrent that she could not stem. 
 
 " Influence, Mr. Ferguson ! What good influence has 
 been wanting that could have failed to make you lead a 
 reputable life, if you had not deliberately chosen degrada- 
 tion in its lowest forms for yourself? What influence should 
 have been greater than that of the father and mother whose 
 hearts you have broken, whose lives you have ruined, 
 whose house you have disgraced and desolated, whose 
 forgiveness and infinite long-suffering you have traded on ? 
 What would be the life of such a woman as you are now 
 pleased to fancy might alter your life if you were Unked 
 to hers — what would be her suflerings, her shame, her 
 sorrows, on your account ? What love can weigh a feather 
 in the scale to influence such a life as yours, when a 
 mother's unceasing devotion is brushed aside and trampled 
 on ? Shame on you to talk of a woman's influence, when
 
 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 189 
 
 you have given such deadly proof of its powerlessness to 
 lead you one inch away from your unspeakably evil ways 
 and works ! " 
 
 She paused, and added hurriedly, " I ought not perhaps 
 
 to have said this, but I could not help it. Your mother's 
 
 wrongs have made me so indignant, that I could not listen 
 
 3 what you just said without speaking my mind." And 
 
 then she left him. 
 
 He sat there feeling as if every word she had said had 
 been the thong of a whip with which he had been merci- 
 lessly scourged, as indeed he had been if words can sting, 
 or cut, or bruise. 
 
 But at length it came to pass that out of the chaos of 
 humiliation, shame, and despair, but not resentment, that 
 surged in his troubled mind, a resolution was formed of 
 which more was heard presently. 
 
 When he met Alice Lennox later there was an odd 
 reversal of their former relative positions. He in order to 
 spare his mother any unhappiness (he thought much of 
 that now), and because Alice Lennox was a guest, and 
 because his instincts of manner were always those of a 
 gentleman, was courteous and quite easy in his manner to 
 her ; she, on the other hand, had lost her earlier quiet way 
 of half showing and half not showing that his presence was 
 only tolerated by her. She was nervous and ill at ease, and 
 much more demonstrative of civiUty to him than she had 
 been before. It was not that she was ashamed of what she 
 had said or had any pity for him ; but she was secretly 
 afraid lest his mother should come to know of it, and 
 be unhappy because he was unhappy, and perhaps very 
 naturally think she had acted unkindly. Worse still, she
 
 I90 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 
 
 thought it possible that her unsparing words might have 
 helped to drive him to despair, and by that road back into 
 his old way of life, and for that she would have been 
 unaffectedly grieved for his parents, and even a little sorry 
 for him. She had therefore upon her a half-guilty feeling, 
 and it made her uncomfortable and nervous and a little 
 self-reproachful. 
 
 But her fears were groundless. He continued to be 
 as he had been ever since his illness, most attentive to his 
 mother, and to make her happier than she had been since 
 his childhood ; and while he did not throw himself in Alice's 
 way, he did not avoid her, nor did he give the slightest 
 sign of falling back into the old ways. He was only very 
 quiet and subdued, and the glimpses of a flow of naturally 
 high spirits that had come out at times when his recovery 
 advanced were no longer seen. 
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 
 The air, the exercise, above all the changed life he was 
 leading, gradually brought Arthur back not to perfect 
 health, for nature would not agree to that after being defied 
 so long, but a condition not far removed from it. And by 
 the time that stage came Mrs. Ferguson was anxious to 
 return to town on her husband's account. Her son's 
 future was naturally very much in her mind, and she was 
 conscious that London would offer temptations to him that 
 he might not be able to resist ; but there was no help for 
 that, and she could hope that all might be well as she saw 
 him so greatly changed. It fell out therefore that the day 
 of their return was fixed.
 
 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 191 
 
 But before they left Coates, only the day before in fact, 
 Arthur sought the chance of one more interview with Alice 
 Lennox, and he found her as before in the garden. There 
 was the same change between them when he spoke to her 
 as there had been in their daily relations since she had 
 denounced him to his face. He was full of steady purpose, 
 and she almost timid this time. 
 
 "Miss Lennox," he said very quietly, "I want to say 
 a few words to you — none that you need be afraid of," he 
 added, as she instinctively made a gesture of retreating 
 from him. " Not many weeks ago you told me what you 
 thought of me in words that were strong, but not too 
 strong, and absolutely just and true. I did not resent 
 them at the time, whatever else I may have felt, and 
 I hope I have not shown since the slightest sign of a 
 resentment that would have been ungenerous and mean. 
 Can you grant me just that very little?" 
 
 He paused a moment, and she said in a low voice, " I 
 can indeed." 
 
 " Not resenting theril then, I want to thank you for them 
 now, because they taught me a lesson that I might never 
 have learnt otherwise. They taught me that a man who has 
 been what I have been has no right even to dream of link- 
 ing his soiled name and fame with that of a pure, good, 
 innocent woman ; that he has by his own act created a 
 gulf that must separate him from such a woman as if he 
 were a leper ; and that mere lip professions of resolutions 
 to lead a new life, or of belief that she can influence him to 
 do so, rightly and justly count for nothing in the feeling 
 with which she must and should regard him. The seal of 
 vice has been set on his forehead, and he is something to
 
 192 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 
 
 be despised and shunned. All that you taught me, but if 
 the lesson had stopped there I might have merely sunk 
 into despair, perhaps a worse condition. It did not. The 
 thought came to me that no past life can be too bad to be 
 retrieved, not by mere emotional resolutions, or even by 
 loving a good woman, but by acts, and that a path still lies 
 before me which, if I can but climb it, will bring back my 
 self-respect, and enable me to lift up my head again even in 
 the presence of such as you are. Do not misunderstand 
 me. I cling to no illusions now, and I will not insult you 
 by referring in the most distant way to a monstrous hope that 
 I had allowed myself to cherish. I know and realise to the 
 full what you think of me, and what you are justified in 
 thinking of me, and that the feeling will never alter, and I 
 accept that as part of a richly deserved punishment. I 
 have only said what I have now, because I have fancied 
 sometimes since that you thought you had been perhaps 
 just a little hard, and I wanted to assure you most truly 
 and sincerely that every word you said rang true to my 
 very soul, and was not perhaps said quite in vain, even 
 to me." 
 
 He bowed his head, and was about to leave her, when 
 she held out her hand to him, and said in a voice that was 
 not at all steady like his own, " Thank you ever so much 
 for saying what you have. I — I — did not mean to be so 
 hard, and you are very generous." He took the hand she 
 offered, and bending down he kissed it, but she instinc- 
 tively knew it was not the kiss of one who hoped to win 
 her love, but of one who was surrendering [all hope of 
 doing so. 
 
 He left her thus, and did not afterwards attempt to refer
 
 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 193 
 
 to the subject again. And she — what was she thinking 
 and feeling herself? Who shall tell? She was a 
 woman. 
 
 Immediately Arthur returned to London he had a long 
 and very earnest conversation with his father, and before 
 many days it became known that he was going out to New 
 Zealand, where his father had a distant connection, who had 
 settled there as a farmer, and to whom and to his wife Mr. 
 Ferguson had shown much kindness during their rare trips 
 to the mother country. He knew them to be thoroughly 
 reliable, and he wrote fully to them, explaining to them 
 only as much of the past as Arthur insisted on their know- 
 ing, so that, as he put it, he might not go to them under 
 false pretences, and proposing terms which he was sure 
 they would gladly accept for receiving Arthur with a general 
 idea of his learning farming, and he arranged for a reply by 
 cable, feeling, as he wisely did, that the sooner Arthur was 
 right away from London the better. The expected answer 
 came, and Arthur started almost immediately afterwards. 
 
 I do not attempt to record what passed between the 
 parents and the son who had come back into their aching 
 hearts, and come back, too, humble- minded and anxious to 
 retrieve the evil days gone by, and to win, not their forgive- 
 ness, for he had that already, and it had never failed him, 
 but their respect. It was a hard parting, and his mother 
 even more than his father felt it bitterly. But she knew it 
 was for the best, and she bore it for his dear sake. Alice 
 Lennox was again a great comfort to her, and there was 
 only this difference, that whereas in the time of Arthur's 
 illness she had often dried the poor mother's tears, but shed 
 none herself, now they cried together. It can have been
 
 194 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 
 
 only out of sympathy for Mrs. Ferguson, of course, but it 
 was shown in a different way. 
 
 Arthur had said good-bye to her quite naturally 
 and steadily, and begged her to be as much as possible 
 with his mother, " For," he said, " she has come to rely on 
 you so much, and your calm, strong way of looking at 
 things is so comforting to her." She promised that she 
 would, and when he had just shaken hands with her, and 
 said, "Good-bye, and God bless you," — he did not even 
 kiss her hand this time — she showed her calm, strong way 
 of looking at things rather oddly by going to her own room 
 and crying as if her heart would break. You see Alice 
 Lennox was, as I said before, a woman. 
 
 Afterwards Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson had no interest or 
 pleasure in life so great as that of reading Arthur's letters 
 from the far-off country. They were delightful letters to read 
 — full of life, modest, manly, cheerful, and, above all, telling 
 them, not boastingly, but with deep, humble thankfulness, 
 that the old craving for drink had been entirely conquered, 
 and that he was working and living to bring home a good 
 name to them. But that was not the only pleasure, for 
 Mr. Ferguson's relatives wrote home confidential letters 
 about Arthur that filled his parents with joy and thankful- 
 ness. They could not say enough that was good of him. 
 There was nothing he could not do, nothing he would not 
 do ; no duty that he ever neglected, no kind service that he 
 was not eager to render to anybody and everybody. He 
 was the life and soul of the place, adored by everybody, and 
 looking splendid in health. 
 
 Three years passed away, and then Mr. Ferguson felt it 
 was time for Arthur to be taking up a more important
 
 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 195 
 
 position in life, and letters were written containing sug- 
 gestions to him as to whether he would like to go in for 
 farming on his own account, for which purpose his father 
 would gladly provide capital ; and one day Mrs. Ferguson 
 said to her husband, "Arthur has been gone three years 
 and twenty-three days, dear, hasn't he ? " 
 
 " About that time, but I could not swear to the odd days. 
 It needs a mother to count them." He looked at her very 
 tenderly as he added that. 
 
 " You're very anxious to arrange something more 
 permanent for him, aren't you, James ? " 
 
 " Indeed I am." 
 
 " Isn't it very difificult to do a thing like that by letter at 
 such a long distance ? " 
 
 Mr. Ferguson looked at his wife for a moment with 
 surprise, and then he understood all that her words implied, 
 for she was trembling a little, and tears stood in her eyes. 
 He went round to her and put his arm on her shoulder. 
 
 " Is the time so very long, my dear ? " 
 
 "Yes, James, dear, it is a Uttle long — and they say he 
 looks so well and handsome ; and we're growing old, dear, 
 aren't we ? " 
 
 The next mail carried out a letter to Arthur from his 
 father expressing an anxious wish that he should come home 
 if only for a short trip, so that they might talk matters over 
 and see what was best to be done. He told him also that 
 his mother was pining to see him, and added, " And I shall 
 be glad to shake your hand too, my dear son, and tell you 
 with my own lips that I am proud of you." 
 
 Alice Lennox, who had been much with them during 
 Arthur's absence, was staying in the house at the time.
 
 196 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 
 
 She possessed their entire confidence, and her devotion to 
 them had amply redeemed her promise to Arthur. The 
 letter to him was shown to her before it was closed up, and 
 after she had read it, and had said in a shy sort of way very 
 unusual to her that it was a very nice letter, she went into 
 her own room and cried as she had done on another 
 occasion. But there are tears and tears, and these tears 
 were not of the same kind as the other tears, but quite 
 sparkling, and, in fact, an entirely different prescription 
 labelled, " To be used externally in cases of great joy." 
 
 Her looks were not of a kind to fade fast, and she had 
 altered very little indeed during those three years. In fact, 
 after the letter had been sent to Arthur she seemed to grow 
 younger, and there was a brightness in her eye, and a light- 
 ness in her step, and a gaiety in her voice that Mr. and Mrs. 
 Ferguson both remarked on, but they did not connect the 
 effect with what we may be allowed to suspect was the 
 cause, for their thoughts were absorbed in Arthur's return. 
 
 What preparations were made for that event. The 
 killing of the fatted calf paled before them. The carpet in 
 Mr. Arthur's room was discovered to be shabby, though no 
 one had ever noticed the circumstance before, and gave 
 way ignominiously to a new one. Twenty times a day his 
 mother went into that room with a hushed step, as if it were 
 a sacred temple, to devise some little new comfort, or put 
 something straight, or have something taken out to be 
 aired for the fourth time. Mr. Arthur would be sure to ask 
 for this if it wasn't there all ready to his hand, or didn't 
 Warner remember how fond he always was of that. Of 
 course he would require a good supply of shirts and other 
 indispensable articles of apparel, and so a haberdasher's
 
 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 197 
 
 shop was raked fore and aft to provide them, the dear soul 
 forgetting that she had sent out enough consignments of 
 similar articles to set him up for years. Warner himself 
 took the fever, and actually asked for a new suit of livery 
 six months before the usual time, because he wanted to do 
 credit to his appearance when he opened the door to Mr. 
 Arthur. 
 
 His father went to meet him as he landed, but the 
 mother could not trust herself to do that, and stayed behind 
 with Alice to receive him at the house. How slowly the 
 time went on at the last, and how the clocks and watches 
 were looked at and compared with each other, and those 
 that were a little fast declared to be right. 
 
 When the supreme hour actually arrived Alice quietly 
 slipped away. She felt instinctively that it was fitting for 
 Arthur's mother to have him all to herself at that first 
 moment. I think too that she was a little agitated, and I 
 might even say shy, of facing Arthur for the first time after 
 his long absence. 
 
 The sound of wheels at last — not like the fifty un- 
 sympathetic mocking wheels that had come within hearing 
 before and pretended that they were going to stop at the 
 door, but had gone past it without so much as saying they 
 were sorry, but the wheels of a cab that carried Mr. 
 Ferguson and Arthur, and did stop there. A knock, a ring, 
 the front door flying open, Warner on the doorstep re- 
 splendent in his new livery ; and in the hall, with beating, 
 grateful heart, with radiant face, the mother who had loved 
 her boy through evil report and good report, and whom he 
 took tenderly in his arms now and kissed and blessed. 
 And as she gazed into his handsome face and saw how
 
 198 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 
 
 splendid he looked, and realised instantly that the bright, 
 joyous nature of his earliest days had come back again to 
 him, controlled and governed now by the steady resolution 
 of a man who has been through the fire and conquered it, 
 she laid her loving head against his breast and whispered to 
 him, " Oh, Arthur, my son, my dear son, weeping may 
 endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." 
 
 They had been together — father, mother, and son — for 
 some time, before Mr. Ferguson suddenly realised that 
 Alice Lennox was not with them, and asked for her. 
 
 " Dear Alice, she is in the house somewhere, James ; 
 but I expect she thought we should like to have a little 
 time together alone first. It would be just like her ; she is 
 so thoughtful, and has been such a blessing to me, Arthur. 
 I cannot bear her to be away from us, and she has devoted 
 a large share of her time to us since you went away." 
 
 Arthur looked grave and thoughtful. He did not think 
 his mother had divined the true reason for her keeping out 
 of the way. He thought it was the old shrinking from him, 
 and although he had steeled himself to bear that, it struck 
 into his heart with a chill. But he bravely put it away from 
 him, for he would not have his parents see a cloud on his 
 face for the world, at that of all moments. 
 
 Mrs. Ferguson went to fetch Alice, and they returned 
 together. She looked at him for a moment, and took in 
 the immense, the glorious alteration in him. He held out 
 his hand to her, and said a few gracious words of thanks 
 for all her care of his dear mother. She seemed embar- 
 rassed and nervous, and even Mrs. Ferguson noticed that 
 she was unlike her usual calm self. 
 
 " Why, Alice dear, here have you been trying all these
 
 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 199 
 
 last few weeks to keep me calm and patient when 1 was 
 waiting for this dear boy of mine, and now you seem, I 
 declare, to be quite excited yourself. Wonders will never 
 cease." 
 
 That little speech, made in all innocence, did not mend 
 matters, for it only made Alice colour deeply, and she was 
 grateful to Arthur when he broke an awkward pause by 
 asking questions about people and things that interested 
 him, and turning the conversation into other channels. 
 She took little part in it, and it did not escape him that 
 she soon left the room. 
 
 He put it all down to the same cause, and as he 
 was dressing for dinner that evening he communed with 
 himself — 
 
 " I knew it must be so. I have told myself so a thousand 
 times when I was far away, and my thoughts would dwell 
 upon her in spite of myself. She put me beyond the pale 
 once and for ever, and was perfectly right to do it, and, 
 I am the same object of aversion to her now as I was then, 
 and always shall be. Still, the actual reality is a bitter pill to 
 swallow. Arthur Ferguson, my man, you have two things 
 to do, and you've just got to do them whether you like it 
 or not. One is, that you must never let one glum look 
 come into your face that your father and mother can see at 
 all, still less associate with its true reason. And another is, 
 that you must brace yourself to say a few words to Alice 
 Lennox, just to make /ler understand that you understand, 
 and try to prevent her from feeling at all awkward when 
 you are about." 
 
 The first of these resolves he kept steadily in view that 
 evening right up to the time — which was late — when his
 
 200 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 
 
 father parted from him after a long talk and smoke together. 
 " God bless you, my dear son," he said as he turned to go 
 to his room, and the words were music indeed in Arthur's 
 ears. 
 
 The second he determined to put into execution next 
 day, and the chance came in his way, for he found Alice 
 alone after lunch while his mother was preparing to go out 
 with him. She rose rather hurriedly as if to go, but he put 
 his hand up in a deprecating way. " Don't go for a minute, 
 Miss Lennox," he said in a voice that was fairly under 
 control, but not quite so much so as he wanted it to be. 
 She sat down, and he saw that she was trembling, and it 
 distressed him. " I am not going to say anything that I 
 think will be painful to you ; indeed I am not," he said 
 pleadingly. " I only wanted just to tell you that I quite 
 understand you feel just the same about me, and that I am 
 not the least hurt or resentful that it is so. I know only 
 too well with what good reason you formed the opinion of 
 me that you did, and I have been home long enough already 
 to see that it has not changed, and never can change." 
 
 He saw it indeed, did he ? Was Arthur a bat, or a mole, 
 or only as blind and fatuous as most men are where a woman 
 is concerned ? 
 
 " I wanted also to tell you how deeply grateful I am still, 
 and always shall be, for what you said to me, which changed 
 the whole current of my life, and to bless you for your de- 
 votion to my dear mother. Sometimes, when far away, I have 
 thought that if you could have seen the change in me you 
 might have forgiven me for all the trouble I brought on my 
 dear father and mother in the old days, and for the words 
 that you rebuked so justly, and that, while you could never
 
 THE JOY THAT CAME IN THE MORNING 201 
 
 care for me or respect me, you would at least not feel that 
 my presence was hateful to you. If you could bring your- 
 self so far as that now, I should be very grateful ; but I do 
 not ask it, or expect it, nor will I ever subject you to the 
 slightest importunity or embarrassment on my account. Oh ! 
 Miss Lennox, what is it — what have I said to distress you ? " 
 
 For just as he had finished what he had summoned all 
 his courage to say, Alice broke down completely, and there 
 she was before him sobbing bitterly. 
 
 For a few moments he stood in utter distress and help- 
 lessness, as he asked himself what he had said that could 
 have so overcome her like this. And then a light as from 
 the sky broke upon him. The bat saw the sun shining for 
 the first time. The mole put his head out of the ground, 
 and got upon his own personally constructed hill and looked 
 at the surrounding scenery. The blundering animal called 
 man for once in a way divined the secret of a woman's heart. 
 In another moment Arthur was bending over her, and he 
 drew her hands away from the dear face that they sought to 
 hide, and looked into it and saw there all that was needed 
 to make the earth and all that therein was beautiful for him. 
 " Alice ! Alice, my darling, whom I loved when I went 
 away and have loved every minute since — is it possible that 
 you care for me — even for me, my dearest — even for me ? " 
 
 She smiled through her tears. 
 
 "Of course it is, you silly old Arthur ! I have cared for 
 you ever since you went away, and should have gone on 
 caring if you had not come back for ten years." 
 
 Arthur did not return to New Zealand. He went in for 
 extensive farming in the neighbourhood of Coates, which 
 house was made over to him by his father as a wedding-gift.
 
 ( 202 ) 
 
 AN OFFICE DINNER 
 
 In some legal firms the ofiice dinner is an annual institu- 
 tion. In others, such a festival takes place only when a 
 new partner joins the firm, or a member of the firm takes 
 unto himself a partner of the other sex under that species 
 of contract which cannot be made for a limited term of 
 years, or lay down any clear rule as to the proportions in 
 which profits and losses are to be shared, or ensure a per- 
 manent continuance of goodwill. The particular office 
 dinner which I am about to describe was given many years 
 ago, upon the occasion of two new partners coming into 
 a firm to which the present writer was then articled. These 
 two heroes were themselves the hosts of the evening, and 
 the dinner took place at an establishment in the city of 
 London, which no longer exists, being now a bank or an 
 insurance office, or some other like institution, and on the 
 daily menu card is now inscribed no dish, except money — 
 money hot, cold, roast, boiled, stewed, fried, baked, or 
 cooked in any other way according to fancy — but always 
 and only money. 
 
 We sat down to dinner, a party of about twenty-four, and 
 had scarcely reached the stage of fish, when the junior office 
 boy was led from the table with a countenance of which the 
 predominant hue was pale green, and the subsequent pro- 
 ceedings interested him no more. It transpired that at
 
 AN OFFICE DINNER 203 
 
 this very early period he had been beguiled into " taking 
 wine " with his neighbours, and had been induced to believe 
 that it was a breach of good manners not to drink off a full 
 glass on every occasion. I doubt not he has grown wiser 
 since, and at all events he has had plenty of time in which 
 to do so. 
 
 There are those who think that justice is not always 
 done in this world, but upon the occasion under notice I 
 am able to declare that full justice was done to the dinner, 
 and that a sense of gratified repletion was to be traced in 
 every countenance when a prodigious number of courses 
 had been disposed of, and we settled down with a hush of 
 expectancy to the serious business of the evening. 
 
 Mr. Holditch, one of the two new partners, announced 
 to us immediately after dinner that we might smoke. We 
 did smoke. I did smoke. At least I began to smoke, and 
 only left off when I realised that to go on was to court 
 defeat, if not disaster. Do not think too hardly of me for 
 this confession, as I was articled very early, and was only 
 in my second year. You were not always a demon with 
 tobacco yourself, dear reader— I was just going to say dear 
 reader of my own sex, when I remembered that the mono- 
 poly has been done away with. 
 
 Then the other new partner, Mr. Scales, said there were 
 to be no speeches, and called rather nervously upon one 
 of the copying clerks for a song, as one who sought to 
 avert a crisis. But the device was in vain, for the copying 
 clerk only blushed and looked hard at Davies, the cashier, 
 who was the doyen of the staff, having been with the firm 
 many years, though he was still a bachelor, and inclined to 
 be sentimental and florid in his language when not drawing
 
 204 AN OFFICE DINNER 
 
 cheques or casting up. All the rest of us looked at Davies 
 too, it having been well understood that he was to propose 
 the health of the two partners, and Davies rose with the 
 air of one who discharges a great mission. It may seem 
 strange that at this distance of time I can recall his words, 
 but the fact is that Davies was partial to me and had given 
 me several private rehearsals. Indeed, he had gone so far 
 as to accept a few ideas from me. 
 
 " Mr. Holditch and Mr. Scales, gentlemen. Before Mr. 
 Sanderson warbles to us, I must beg to be permitted, as an 
 old servant of the firm, to give vent to the sentiments which 
 animate all our breasts" (I had suggested "bosoms," but 
 Davies said he thought " breasts " had a more manly ring 
 about it), "on this happy occasion, and to propose your 
 healths, jointly and severally" ("jointly and severally" was 
 mine, and I got the hint out of Williams' " Real Property," 
 and feel bound to make this acknowledgment to the author). 
 " Mr. Holditch, sir, you have for some years assisted to 
 guide the destinies of the firm, and have won our esteem, 
 our respect, may I say for self and fellow clerks, our warm 
 affection. Mr. Scales, sir, you have passed in the office 
 your period of articled clerkship, and if at times your ardent 
 spirits " (I had told Davies that this sounded too much like 
 gin, but he fancied the phrase) " have carried you away 
 into innocent practical jests, such as making music with 
 a comb wrapped up in paper in my room when I have been 
 working out rather difficult accounts, why, sir, these merry 
 moments have but endeared you to us. Nor do we forget 
 that you are the son of the esteemed head of the firm, and 
 that we hope and believe you will prove ' a noble scion of 
 a noble sire.' "
 
 AN OFFICE DINNER 205 
 
 Davies believed firmly that that crowning point of his 
 peroration came out of Shakespeare, but I never felt sure 
 that he had got it quite right. Anyhow, though it was 
 drowned in applause, no inquest was held upon it. 
 
 The toast was duly honoured, and the reply of Mr. 
 Holditch was very modest and to the point. The reply of 
 Mr. Scales was also very modest, but not quite so much to 
 the point, for it has to be confessed that he had incautiously 
 imbibed enough generous wine to obscure somewhat the 
 keen edge of his intellect, to which must be added the fact 
 that he was youthful and inexperienced in oratory. 
 
 According to my recollection he informed the company 
 that his father was his father, and then declared that Mr. 
 Davies had always been a father to him since he came to 
 the ofifice, and then described Mr. Holditch as being more 
 than his father. After laying in this plentiful stock of male 
 parents, he begged everybody's forgiveness for his past con- 
 duct without any obvious reason, and then passed into a 
 quagmire of nouns, verbs, and other parts of speech having 
 no marked connection with each other, finally declaring 
 that he should never forget it as long as he lived. 
 
 This episode over harmony reigned for a time. The 
 copying clerk originally called upon dived out of the room 
 and returned with a song, of which the purport was that in 
 all imaginable circumstances he would stand by his friend, 
 who, in the course of the verses, got into terrible difficulties, 
 financial and otherwise. This he sang with great spirit, 
 assisted by a real live accompanist at the piano, and retired 
 to his seat amid loud plaudits. 
 
 To him succeeded, in response to a loud call, the manag- 
 ing common law clerk, Mr. Briggs, who was not only a
 
 2o6 AN OFFICE DINNER 
 
 noted comedian during office hours, but was more than 
 suspected of being an occasional performer in a place of 
 entertainment at Margate on Saturday evenings. More- 
 over, in conversations with me, he claimed to be familiarly 
 acquainted in private life with stars of the London music 
 halls to an extent that inspired me then with the deepest 
 awe. I am inspired now with the belief that Briggs never 
 told the truth except when making affidavits, and not 
 always then. 
 
 Briggs felt that something out of the common was ex- 
 pected of him, and left the room for several minutes, while 
 the hush of expectancy sat upon us. He returned, and 
 shrieks of laughter rent the air when it was seen that he 
 was in costume. He had endued himself in a scarlet hunt- 
 ing coat, a white bowler hat, trousers of an exaggerated 
 check pattern, white shoes, a prodigious blue tie made up 
 in a bow, and a double-breasted white waistcoat. He had 
 also painted his nose red and floured his whiskers, for in 
 those days there were whiskers in the land, as contemporary 
 portraits will prove to the clean-shaved convict of to-day. 
 The result was a little confusing and wanting in central idea, 
 because Briggs looked, so to speak, bits of all sorts of pos- 
 sibly intended characters, but I feel sure the collection had 
 been brought together with much care, and it really was in 
 its way quite a museum of unabashed vulgarity. It is fair 
 also to say that at that distant period of history, even the 
 leading low comedians of the music halls, who were Briggs' 
 heroes and guides, and, as he would have me believe, also 
 his bosom friends, had very rude ideas of making up for 
 stage purposes. I use the word rude in every sense in 
 which it can be interpreted.
 
 AN OFFICE DINNER 207 
 
 With the instinct of an artist Briggs stood quite still for a 
 time, while the easily pleased company (no one more easily 
 pleased than I, and alas, how difficult I am to please now !) 
 took in his personal appearance in all its incongruous details, 
 and laughter was interspersed with a ripple of free but 
 admiring comments, in which latter the assistant common 
 law clerk was conspicuous, as he obviously felt that this 
 particular business was being attended to in his department. 
 Then Briggs struck up a song, of which I remember the 
 refrain was : — 
 
 " You may 'it me, beat me, knock me down, 
 But you mustn't touch the gal." 
 
 The motive of the song was that he, Briggs, had taken a 
 young lady (the pronunciation "lidy" had not come into 
 vogue then, and I am nothing if not accurate) to whom he 
 was deeply, and, so far as could be judged from the evidence, 
 honourably attached, to various places of entertainment, and 
 had on each occasion had the misfortune to become involved 
 in violent controversy with some other person or persons in 
 the same audience. He represented himself as having 
 acted gallantly in all these difficulties, and the keynote was 
 his great anxiety that, whatever happened to him, Matilder 
 should not suffer violence. There was a great deal of gag, 
 which always led up to the refrain respectfully quoted above, 
 and, as a curiosity, I give one specimen of what provoked 
 shrieks of laughter at an office dinner in the middle of the 
 Victorian Era, as nearly as I can remember it — 
 
 " The next time I'd a holiday 
 I took out my Matilder ; 
 Says I we'll go unto the play ; 
 With joy the promise filled 'er ;
 
 2o8 AN OFFICE DINNER 
 
 But while between two acts we sat 
 As quiet as two mice, 
 A clumsy brute upon 'er 'at 
 Upset a penny ice." 
 
 " Well, of course, this was more than flesh and blood 
 could stand, for I'd given 'er the 'at myself, and it corst 
 eighteen coppers without the feather, wich I bought 
 separate from the poulterer's shop round the corner, as 
 'e was plucking ostriches that day, and I ses I don't know 
 wot you call yerself, but you aren't no gentleman, where- 
 upon he gave me one in the left hoptic, and we got mixed ; 
 but jest as I was gettin' the hupper 'and two or three pals 
 of his set on me, and then Matilder she started screamin', 
 and I saw stars enough to fill the firmamential globe with 
 twinklers, but I 'it out for all I was worth, wich that 
 evenin' was 'arf-a-crown, and wen I saw things goin' wery 
 bad I jest managed to call out — 
 
 " You may 'it me, l^eat me, knock me down, 
 But you mustn't touch the gal." 
 
 It will be perceived that neither the hunting-coat nor 
 any other article in his miscellaneous costume could be 
 conscientiously connected in the remotest way with his 
 song, but that mattered nothing to us, and the whole 
 performance was received with rapture. 
 
 A pleasant surprise of quite a different kind was next 
 in store. I may mention that for several days before the 
 dinner mysterious sounds had occasionally been heard in 
 a basement below the office wherein there was much store 
 of papers and a strong-room. These sounds did not 
 resemble the droning noise which is heard when one clerk, 
 who is thinking of something else far away, reads out an
 
 AN OFFICE DINNER 209 
 
 engrossment of a deed to another clerk who holds a draft 
 of it, at which he occasionally gazes with lack-lustre eyes, 
 and who is also thinking of something else farther away. 
 On the contrary, they seemed to indicate music as widely 
 distinguished from law. This phenomenon was also ac- 
 companied by a difficulty in finding certain clerks, for 
 whose temporary absence other clerks gave reasons that 
 were not convincing. 
 
 But now the murder came out, for at a given signal four 
 junior members of the staff, composed of a shorthand 
 writer, an assistant Chancery clerk, a copyist, and a Jack- 
 of-all-work, disappeared from the table, and, returning with 
 pieces of music in their hands, and conscious blushes on 
 their cheeks, gave in great style, as a four-part glee, " Oh, 
 who will o'er the Downs so Free." 
 
 The shorthand writer went perhaps a little too fast ; the 
 copyist showed a tendency to follow too faithfully his next- 
 door neighbour instead of sticking to his own notes ; the 
 Jack-of-all-work trespassed on every other singer's words 
 and notes by turns ; and the assistant Chancery clerk 
 didn't seem to mind when the glee got into a tangle. If 
 their respective occupations are analysed, however, for a 
 moment it will be seen that these little blemishes can be 
 traced to original causes without difficulty, and I could 
 point out with regard to the assistant Chancery clerk that 
 the Judicature Act had not then been passed, and that 
 Chancery suits were not then disposed of in four weeks 
 at a cost of two pounds ten shillings as between solicitor 
 and client. We live in great times now, and ought to be 
 very thankful. I hope we all are. I am. {Note. — I have 
 it in contemplation to apply for an official post, and
 
 2IO AN OFFICE DINNER 
 
 humbly trust that the very proper spirit shown in the last 
 few words may come under the notice of High Legal 
 Quarters.) 
 
 So far I had been sitting in a position of great freedom 
 and no responsibility, and after my little smoking episode 
 my pleasure had been unalloyed. I had laughed loud and 
 long, cracked jokes with various members of the staff, sung 
 the chorus when there was one, and applauded on all 
 possible occasions with the vigour and spirits of youth — 
 where are they now? — where are they now, I ask? 
 
 But Mr. Holditch had got a rod in pickle for me that I 
 little knew of. He was a quiet man, but he had withal a 
 keen sense of humour, and he thought that a little im- 
 promptu entertainment might be afforded by me, by which 
 I mean at my expense. With a twinkle in his eye he took 
 advantage of a pause to say that as the rule against toasts 
 had been broken already, he should like to invade it once 
 more by proposing one himself. 
 
 It was difficult to discriminate between the many 
 respected members of the staff present this evening 
 (Davies here looked as if he saw no difficulty when he, 
 Davies, was there), when all were alike so loyal to the 
 interests of the firm, though some, of course, held positions 
 of greater responsibility than others (the managing clerks 
 sniffed in a conscious manner here). At the same time, 
 he felt sure there would be a general desire to encourage 
 the rising generation, who would in their day, he was sure, 
 become prominent members of the profession (a cold 
 perspiration broke out all over me), and he therefore 
 asked them to drink as a toast "The articled clerks," and 
 to call on the youngest of them to respond. As there is
 
 AN OFFICE DINNER 211 
 
 a sun above — or was before the year of grace 1903 — that 
 was me ! 
 
 Think of it. Not a moment's warning. Not the faintest 
 idea that any such crime was meditated. The senior clerks 
 a little ruffled at the selection of my class, and rather eager 
 for my downfall. The junior clerks regarding it (as indeed 
 it was) as a huge joke almost paling the performance of 
 Briggs. My tongue cleaving to the roof of my mouth and 
 declining to come down. My thoughts wandering in every 
 direction but the one desired. My legs trembling. A 
 mist before my eyes. And when I did find a voice it 
 didn't sound like mine at all, but appeared to belong to 
 somebody else a mile off. 
 
 There are some things too sacred for publicity, and my 
 speech that evening is one of them, and I will not, no, I will 
 not, reproduce it on these pages. One of the other articled 
 clerks, who, being older than myself, had escaped the 
 ordeal and sniggered like a brute all the time I was speak- 
 ing, repeated to me next day, with roars of unfeeling 
 laughter, what he declared I had said. One of my 
 gems was stated by him to have been the preposterous 
 remark (which I never made) that I thought Conveyancing 
 pleasant, Chancery interesting, and Common Law beastly. 
 He also said there were long pauses when nothing came 
 from me, and gurgles came from everybody else. He like- 
 wise comforted me by declaring that when, as he supposed, 
 I meant to say that it was a great honour to the articled 
 clerks to have this toast proposed, and I was proud to 
 respond to it ; what I did say was that the articled clerks 
 were proud of toast, and I was an honour to response. As 
 a finishing stroke he swore that I did not finish at all, but
 
 212 AN OFFICE DINNER 
 
 sat down in the middle of a sentence devoid of all meaning. 
 I will say for myself that by the time my tormentor, whose 
 name (which I mention in order to hand it down to infamy) 
 was Oldaker, had finished he was sitting in the middle of a 
 heap of missiles, which included one volume of Stephen's 
 Commentaries, one ditto of Davidson's Precedents, a ruler, 
 the rough draft of a mortgage (which, remember, was a fat 
 document in those days, because the power of sale and 
 other clauses were set out instead of being implied), and 
 his own hat. 
 
 Many other " turns " were got through during the even- 
 ing, notably a very severe and high-toned recitation by 
 Maunders, the managing Chancery clerk, which, as he told 
 me in confidence, was intended to operate as a corrective 
 of the low comedy of Briggs, which he rather despised. It 
 certainly had a lowering effect, and was all about broken 
 hearts and desolated lives. 
 
 And then at last we sang " Auld Lang Syne " and went 
 home, certainly not sadder and perhaps not wiser, and 
 when we all met at the office next day and pursued our 
 several tasks — mine being a little disorganised by Oldaker's 
 misconduct before referred to, and my vengeance upon him 
 — it was difficult to realise that the office dinner had been a 
 solid (and liquid) fact, and not a creature of fancy. 
 
 And if difficult then to realise it, how much more 
 difficult now when time has done its work upon me and 
 upon all my companions of that evening ? I have before 
 me as I write a crude record of the events at the festive 
 board, prepared by one of my fellow articled clerks at the 
 time, and which has been in my possession ever since. 
 The hand that wrote it will never write another record,
 
 AN OFFICE DINNER 213 
 
 grave or gay. I have before me in remembrance faces 
 that were merry and young then, and which have been 
 stamped since, not at Somerset House, but at a still more 
 inexorable establishment, where penalties are never re- 
 mitted, and interest is always running, with the impressed 
 stamp used to denote the lapse of thirty years. Of some 
 of those with me that night I have long lost sight ; some 
 have gone to the land of Shadows, to await an Originating 
 Summons not issued from the Chancery Division ; some 
 have failed in life, and others have succeeded. And not 
 all the King's horses nor all the King's men can bridge 
 over the gulf that time has laboriously, remorselessly, con- 
 structed between the young articled clerk who had to make 
 the first speech of his life that night and the elderly legal 
 practitioner who has introduced him to the reader's notice 
 by these presents. 
 
 When I take now by virtue of relentless seniority a very 
 different place at the periodical office dinners of a certain firm 
 of solicitors, unbidden guests, seen by no eye but mine, will 
 come in silently from out of the mists of the far-off past and 
 sit down with the rest at the banquet ; and I can only banish 
 them again to the shades from whence they appear by sum- 
 moning to my help the philosophy that I once heard de- 
 scribed in a brilliant after-dinner speech in words that, if 
 my memory serves me, the orator traced to a Persian poet : 
 
 " Ah ! fill the cup ! What boots it to repeat 
 How time is slipping; underneath our feet ? 
 Unborn to-morrow and dead yesterday, 
 Why fret about them if this hour be gay ! "
 
 ( 214 ) 
 
 THE COPYING CLERK PEARSON 
 
 The trite but truthful saying that one half of the world 
 does not know how the other half lives is, I suppose, in- 
 tended to apply literally to the manner in which the 
 means of living are earned, begged, borrowed, stolen, or 
 otherwise procured. In that sense it has little meaning of 
 course for the small world inside a solicitor's office, be- 
 cause, saving for occasional private earnings of a surprising 
 kind, each person employed knows what every other 
 person is doing or neglecting to do as the case may be, 
 and pretty accurately also what he receives by way of 
 emolument. But it is wonderfully true if applied to the 
 ignorance of many, whose daily work necessitates their 
 spending most waking hours in each other's company in 
 the same office, as to what happens to this or that clerk 
 when the day's work is over and the staff depart in differ- 
 ent directions. This is not because solicitors' clerks are 
 an unsociable or mysterious race of beings, but largely 
 because from the nature of things there will be found very 
 distinctly marked social grades among the staff, and hence 
 those who may be on excellent terms during office hours 
 will as a matter of course have no relations with each 
 other elsewhere. They go their very different ways, to 
 meet again the next morning in the exact relationship to
 
 THE COPYING CLERK PEARSON 215 
 
 each other that was left behind on the previous evening at 
 the moment of quitting the office. 
 
 Copying clerks pure and simple were, I think, a more 
 numerous class as members of a solicitor's staff in my 
 early days than they are now, in London at all events. 
 In those archaic times there were no feminine type- 
 writing establishments plying for business, and agitating 
 at times the susceptible bosoms of articled clerks, and 
 though shorthand writing was recognised as necessary for 
 the rapid demands of business, shorthand writers were not 
 so widely used even in large offices as they are now, but 
 were regarded rather as the sacred and exclusive preroga- 
 tives of hard-driven principals. Indeed I remember one 
 city office where a considerable business was done without 
 the aid of a single shorthand writer, because the senior 
 partner held (not without reason too) that the use of that 
 assistance led to sHp-shod composition. But this no 
 doubt was a very exceptional case, and elegant composition 
 was cultivated at the cost of office hours so protracted, 
 that I verily believe the prejudice cost him his life. 
 
 Whether I am right in thinking that the copying clerk 
 is a declining institution, and very likely I am quite wrong, 
 it is certain that Pearson was employed in that capacity in 
 an office in which I had a seat many years ago. He did 
 nothing but copying from morning to night, except that he 
 occasionally examined the result of his work with another 
 clerk against the rough document from which he had made 
 the copy. He wrote a beautiful round hand, and took a 
 most terrible time to do it, not because he was lazy, which 
 would have been a vice, but because he was painstaking 
 and conscientious, which was a virtue, though a virtue
 
 2i6 THE COPYING CLERK PEARSON 
 
 rather run to seed perhaps. He never looked off his work, 
 never chattered to other clerks, and rarely spoke at all. 
 He was a man of about forty years of age, with a pale face 
 and straggling black whiskers, and a scanty head of hair 
 of the same sombre hue streaked with white. His eyes 
 had a curiously intent look in them, probably arising from 
 the continuous habit of keeping them fixed all day on one 
 paper and copying another. He stooped a good deal, which 
 was also, no doubt, attributable to his occupation, and he 
 was always dressed in rusty black garments. He invited 
 no notice from any one as he pursued his day's work, 
 and he received none beyond a latent, shadowy respect, 
 which I think was generally felt on account of his quiet, 
 inoffensive demeanour, and which showed itself almost 
 unconsciously in his being rarely or never made the sub- 
 ject of a practical joke. The atmosphere of a solicitor's 
 office is not favourable to the growth of that most detest- 
 able form of imbecile pleasantry, but it does occasionally 
 spring into sickly existence for a time, or, at all events, it 
 did at the period of which I am writing. 
 
 I knew nothing whatever about Pearson. Whether he 
 was married or single ; if married, whether he had a large 
 family or none ; whether he was a Roman Catholic, a 
 Primitive Methodist, or an Agnostic ; whether he was a 
 Conservative, a Liberal, or a Socialist ; where he lived ; 
 what he did when he left the office ; not one of these 
 items of information was known to me, or sought to be 
 known by me. As he sat there hour after hour, day after 
 day, stooping over his work in exactly the same attitude, 
 and always, always copying, he grew to be in my eyes as 
 much a piece of office furniture as the high stool to which
 
 THE COPYING CLERK PEARSON 217 
 
 he was glued, and at the rare intervals when he was off 
 the stool the combined article seemed to me in fancy to 
 have, as it were, come in half. 
 
 But it came to pass that by one of those coincidences 
 always deemed extraordinary and always happening, I did 
 get to know a great deal about Pearson. I had a friend 
 who was much interested in the labour of a parson who 
 was an old college chum of his and had charge of an East 
 End parish that was poor even amongst East End parishes. 
 I am writing of a time when " slumming " had not become 
 a recognised institution ; when the west of London had 
 not stretched its right hand of sympathy towards the east 
 and the south to anything like the same extent as now ; 
 when the cry of the submerged tenth had not made itself 
 heard by ears dulled with more agreeable sounds, and the 
 sights to be seen in those parts had not come within the 
 vision of eyes swelled with fatness. My friend used fre- 
 quently to visit this parson and come away feeling, as he 
 told me, that he ought to sell all that he had and hand it 
 over, and also feeling when he got back that somehow or 
 other he did not quite see his way to do it. Being a 
 lawyer, it occurred to me that there was a precedent for 
 his case in a certain text-book that has never required to 
 be revised in consequence of Acts of Parliament or de- 
 cisions of the Courts, but I hasten to add on the testimony 
 of the parson himself that my friend's purse, as well as his 
 support and sympathy, were invaluable to him in his up- 
 hill fight with poverty, ignorance, and crime. 
 
 Moved, I fear, by no more creditable motive than 
 curiosity, I was induced one evening, after business hours, 
 to go with my friend to see the parson of whom I had
 
 2i8 THE COPYING CLERK PEARSON 
 
 heard him speak. The church was in a very narrow 
 street, and the vicarage (save the mark !) next to it. The 
 vicarage was immediately opposite to a public-house of the 
 most pronounced East End type, and at night it was hardly 
 possible to open any of the windows, even in the most 
 stifling weather, by reason of the sounds which proceeded 
 from the licensed establishment on the other side of the 
 way. The Vicar had a young wife and two little children, 
 and I got to know somehow that for daily exercise and 
 recreation the only available spot to which the latter could 
 be conducted was a small enclosed space which was a dis- 
 used burial ground, containing to the best of my recollection 
 the bones of departed Hebrews. They looked very frail and 
 delicate {I mean the wife and children, not the bones), and 
 but for their going away periodically to kind friends in the 
 country, I do not imagine that they could have lived long 
 in such surroundings without serious injury to health. 
 
 The parson was full of energy and pluck — God knows, he 
 had need to be — and as we sat at an evening meal with him, 
 he readily gratified my curiosity by telling me of his work 
 and its difficulties, and, above all, the perpetual and most 
 uncongenial task of trying to get money from outside for the 
 many crying needs of his parish. I asked him if he had a 
 curate, and he answered that he had one, but could have 
 found employment for four if it were possible to meet the 
 expense. 
 
 "Still," he said cheerily, "don't think I'm growHng, 
 because in many ways I am helped splendidly even by some 
 of my own people here. One man is as good as a curate 
 to me in everything but help in the services, and even in 
 them he reads the lessons, and never misses taking a class
 
 THE COPYING CLERK PEARSON 219 
 
 in the Sunday schools, summer or winter. He is at work 
 all day, but when he gets back in the evening to a little 
 lodging near here (much poorer than he need live in if he 
 did not give away nearly all he earns), he writes night after 
 night for us, addressing my begging letters, writing out many 
 of them for me, teaching at the night school, speaking to 
 the lads whom he • gets together, and helping them quietly 
 in a hundred ways. He is not much to look at, but he is a 
 splendid fellow nevertheless, and what we should do with- 
 out him, I don't know." He turned to his wife, who echoed 
 fervently, " What, indeed ! " 
 
 " What is he ? " I asked. 
 
 " He is some sort of a law clerk, I beHeve, but it must be 
 in a humble way, as he is well on in years, and can only be 
 earning a small salary, and I can never gather that he has 
 any prospects. Indeed, he told me once that he was get- 
 ting as much as he could ever expect, and, as he added in 
 his quiet way, as much as he was worth, but he hardly ever 
 says a word about himself, and he has not, I believe, a 
 relation in the world known to him." 
 
 " And his name ? " 
 
 "Pearson." 
 
 I started, because although there are many law clerks 
 and many Pearsons, something in the description seemed 
 instinctively to bring before me the copying clerk whom I 
 knew so well, and yet did not know at all. 
 
 " Do you know where he works ? " I asked with some 
 eagerness. 
 
 The parson gave me the address, and it was none other 
 than the office in which I was working myself, and I there- 
 fore identified Pearson beyond a doubt.
 
 220 THE COPYING CLERK PEARSON 
 
 1 showed my surprise unmistakably. Indeed, I am 
 afraid I said "By Jove!" which was not a proper expres- 
 sion to use at a vicarage, or perhaps anywhere else. Then 
 I tried to smother that pagan expletive by hurriedly telling 
 the Vicar and his wife who and what Pearson was in the 
 daytime, and how little I had suspected the manner of life 
 he led apart from the office. 
 
 They were naturally much interested, and the Vicar soon 
 told me that, if I liked, I could see Pearson himself, as it 
 was one of the night school evenings, and the Vicar himself 
 would shortly be looking in. And then he suddenly paused, 
 and I divined the cause of his hesitation, and assured him 
 earnestly that I would on no consideration disclose at the 
 office what I learnt about Pearson that evening, and pro- 
 mised to repeat the assurance (as I afterwards did) to 
 Pearson himself. 
 
 So we sallied out, the Vicar, my friend, and I, and after 
 passing through a varied assortment of pestiferously smel- 
 ling streets, we reached a ramshackle building that looked 
 as if it had once been some sort of a little factory or store- 
 house, and had got past its work, and also looked as if it might 
 very readily fall in ; and, when we got inside, all the varied 
 odours we had encountered on the way appeared to have 
 come in with us at the door and mixed socially with each 
 other. 
 
 And there was the night school, where reading, writing, 
 and arithmetic were taught to such of the rougher lads of 
 the parish as could be induced by kind persuasion to come 
 in : remember, please, again that I am referring to times 
 when School Boards and Board Schools were not. And 
 here, in the midst of them, teaching writing at that moment.
 
 THE COPYING CLERK PEARSON 221 
 
 of all things on this earth to teach after writing all day and 
 every day himself, was Pearson. He looked up when we en- 
 tered, and on catching sight of me he started violently and his 
 pale face flushed all over, but I made my way to him instantly, 
 and shook his hand warmly, and in a few minutes I was 
 able to set him quite at his ease, and to see him again 
 absorbed in his labour of love. Let me put in paren- 
 thetically here that to no living soul in the office did I ever 
 betray Pearson's confidence, or show there, even to him, 
 any outw^ard consciousness of what I had learnt. It would 
 not see the light even now, but that Pearson himself has 
 long'since ended his journey, and his eyes have beheld the 
 land that is very far off. 
 
 I said just now the rougher lads. They were, in fact, 
 about as rough a lot as ever I set eyes on in dress, manner, 
 speech, and want of cleanliness ; and their ages ranged 
 from about fifteen to nineteen, the Vicar's wish, as 
 I learnt, being to capture those who had passed all 
 ordinary chances of school without learning anything at 
 all except evil, of which there was plenteous teaching 
 available for them gratis by the best professors. I take it 
 that between fifteen and nineteen a boy brought up in 
 thoroughly vicious surroundings has had time to become 
 about as bad as it is possible for the genus boy to be, and 
 I was not surprised when the Vicar told me of inaugural 
 ceremonies in the way of free fights, blood-curdling lan- 
 guage, and general pandemonium that attended the institu- 
 tion of the class. " But," he whispered to me as we stood 
 there, " Pearson has the most wonderful influence over 
 them. They will do anything for him, I don't know 
 what it is exactly in that quiet, timid, and intellectually
 
 222 THE COPYING CLERK PEARSON 
 
 dull man that appeals to such better instincts as their 
 bringing up has left for us to work upon, but it is a fact, 
 and I think that somehow it gets even into their rough 
 natures that he is simply giving his life to them, as indeed 
 he is. They show it in odd ways that don't exactly meet my 
 clerical approval " (he put this in with a sly twinkle of the 
 eye), "as, for instance, not long ago, when a great big lad 
 came in, nominally to join the class, but really to create 
 a row, from which he no doubt anticipated good sport. 
 He began to use bad language immediately he came in ; 
 but bad language is unhappily the vernacular about here, 
 and that did not attract much notice, until he applied an 
 abusive epithet to Pearson, and threatened him with 
 violence, perhaps not meaning it. I learnt the next day 
 that within two minutes he was in the street outside in 
 a very bruised and battered condition, and that but for 
 Pearson's entreaties he would have been half-killed. When 
 the class was over Pearson hunted him up, attended to 
 his cuts and bruises, and cast that wonderful influence of 
 his over the offender, and now there he is at that corner, 
 and I am certain that if another intruder were to come in 
 to-night and insult Pearson, that lad would be the first to 
 take his coat off and go for him." He pointed as he spoke 
 to a shambling specimen of youth who was laboriously 
 trying to surmount the difficulties of a capital G by spread- 
 ing himself in an ink-stained condition almost all round 
 the object of attack, while Pearson bent over him and 
 laid an encouraging hand lightly upon the lad's shoulder. 
 
 Verily it was a revelation to me to see this side of 
 Pearson's life, and he was thenceforth invested in my eyes 
 with an admiring and pathetic interest, and all the more so
 
 THE COPYING CLERK PEARSON 223 
 
 because I alone knew what manner of man he was. It 
 may be also that then and since I have compared his 
 occupations out of office hours with my own without find- 
 ing the result very satisfactory ; but I am writing about 
 Pearson and not about myself, and the ghosts of wasted 
 opportunities and golden hours frittered away in the idle 
 chase after happiness along a road to which a wise man 
 gave the name of VamVas Vaf//taium must remain in the 
 cupboard till I get through this paper at all events, though 
 they have a nasty way of coming to stay with me uninvited, 
 and are then as hard to induce to go to bed as I once was 
 myself. 
 
 The parson had said that he did not know what they 
 would do without Pearson, but alas for the parson — I do 
 not also say alas for Pearson— that dire emergency had to 
 to be faced, and it was faced I know bravely, though with 
 an aching heart. For close sedentary toil in an office all 
 day, followed by evenings spent in unhealthy rooms, and 
 with Sundays in just the same surroundings thrown in, 
 knocked at the door of a constitution undermined by in- 
 sufficient nourishment and neglect of all the laws of health, 
 and Pearson gradually failed ; so gradually, that in the office 
 no change was noticed except by myself until long after 
 he had begun to descend the hill, unless perhaps a chance 
 observation was made that Pearson was, if possible, slower 
 than ever. I knew something more of it through my 
 friend and the parson, and more than once I contrived an 
 opportunity of urging Pearson privately, as they did, to take 
 rest and change. But I don't think he really wished it 
 otherwise, and at all events nothing would induce him to 
 alter his mode of life or relax his voluntary work in the
 
 224 THE COPYING CLERK PEARSON 
 
 least degree. I was told, and indeed I saw evidence of it 
 more than once with my own eyes, that the noisiest and 
 roughest of the lads he used to teach and help would keep 
 still when the whisper went round that he was not well, 
 and wistful eyes would look at him with affectionate 
 anxiety, and in many a clumsy way they tried to show that 
 they were mindful of him. 
 
 Then came a day when the office stool on which he had 
 drudged so patiently for so many years was empty, and an 
 excuse was sent that he was not well enough to come to the 
 office ; and, as it proved, he had engrossed his last deed, 
 and That Indenture Witnessed that he never came again. 
 Not many weeks afterwards a slight shock passed through 
 the office on news coming that he had died ; and then a 
 new copyist was engaged, and sat on the same office stool, 
 and This Indenture Witnessed that another drudged in his 
 stead. 
 
 But very different was the mourning for him in that East 
 End parish, where a desolating sense of irreparable loss 
 was felt, not only by the parson, whose right hand he had 
 been, but by many a rude, ignorant London rough, whom 
 he had softened and humanised, and taught to go straight 
 by his own splendid example of self-sacrifice ; and tears 
 made channels that day down unwashed faces when he was 
 laid in a cemetery out eastward, where the tombstones in 
 their serried rows looked as orderly and regular as the 
 words in one of Pearson's own engrossments, and the few 
 imposing tombs might have been the capital letters. And 
 if as I stood there with my friend, while the parson, in a 
 voice shaken by grief, read the service, I added my own 
 tribute of flowers that meant little, and a catching of the
 
 THE COPYING CLERK PEARSON 225 
 
 breath that meant much, who shall tell me that I had any 
 need to be ashamed ? 
 
 Thus the copying-clerk, Pearson, lived and died ; and of 
 all the companions of his daily toil in the ofifice, I alone — 
 and that by a pure accident — knew that the dull, quiet man, 
 who copied so slowly and spoke so seldom and attracted 
 no attention from anybody, was a king among men, though 
 his crown was not prepared for him on this side of the 
 grave.
 
 ( 226 ) 
 
 HO IV TOMK/NS ENJOYED GARDENING^ 
 
 " How are you, Tomkins ? Very glad to see you. Just hold 
 this flower-pot, will you ? Mater, here's Mr. Tomkins." 
 
 I was (and still am) Tomkins, and that was how Chalker 
 greeted me on my arrival last Whitsuntide at a country 
 abode which he had just taken and furnished as a place for 
 occasional retreat from toil and care. 
 
 I knew Chalker only very slightly as a busy London 
 lawyer. The reason why it came to pass that I went to 
 stay with him and his spouse was that Manders was a very 
 old friend of mine and theirs ; that Manders and his wife 
 were abiding as visitors for a few days with the Chalkers, 
 and that wherever little Mary (as metaphorically represent- 
 ing the Manderses) went the lamb (that is me) was sure to 
 go. In other words, I was at all times, and especially at 
 holiday times, a recognised standing appendage of the 
 Manders' domestic establishment. 
 
 I had never before seen Chalker in anything but the 
 soberest professional garments or evening dress. I beheld 
 him now in a pair of dilapidated flannel trousers kept 
 rather imperfectly in position by an ancient belt with a gilt 
 
 ^ This sketch, under a slightly different name, was originally contri- 
 buted to the English Illustrated Magazine, and I have to thank both 
 the former and present proprietors for their courtesy in readily consent- 
 ing to its republication in this volume. — E. F. T.
 
 HOW TOM KINS ENJOYED GARDENING 227 
 
 representation on it of the " All England Eleven," a shirt 
 of the same material with the sleeves rolled up to the 
 elbows, a pair of nondescript shoes that seemed to have 
 originally had something to do with rowing, and to have 
 become reduced to want, and a cap of sorts on the back of 
 his head. He was in a violent state of horticulture, being 
 much moved thereunto by the vigorous exertions of 
 Manders, who really loved gardening, and Horace Pooley, 
 an old friend of Chalker's, who was also very keen on that 
 occupation, and who stood in much the same relation to 
 him as I did to Manders and his better half, and, as I 
 soon found, did not like any one else staying in the house 
 but himself. Occasional assistance was being rendered by 
 Chalker's own real live Sussex gardener, Snokes, who how- 
 ever, for the most part, regarded the proceedings with bucolic 
 contempt, and became to me a positive source of terror 
 when I met his eye. 
 
 To return to the flower-pot. When Chalker handed 
 it to me I received it with some surprise, but grasped it 
 mechanically in both hands. Then, as Mrs. Chalker came 
 forward to greet me, followed by Mrs. Manders, I let go of 
 it with one hand in order to disengage that member for pur- 
 poses of salutation and freedom of movement, because a 
 man cannot make much of himself in the presence of ladies 
 when he is holding a flower-pot with both hands. I had, 
 however, miscalculated the weight of the article, and it fell 
 partly on to Chalker's smooth gravel path, and partly on to 
 Chalker's toe, smashing the pot, breaking the plant, and 
 scattering the mould in all directions. I apologised and 
 made weak attempts to pick up the pieces, but Chalker did 
 not seem to care about it, and I rather thought I caught a
 
 228 HOW TOM KINS ENJOYED GARDENING 
 
 muttered expression which sounded like " Ham." Chalker 
 did keep a pig. 
 
 This awkward episode over, I escaped into the house, 
 and then, after changing my travelling clothes for my best 
 tennis get-up, I sallied out into the garden and joined the 
 party. I found Pooley and Manders bedding out plants, 
 and the two ladies encamped in a corner with needlework 
 that they did not do, and books that they did not read, 
 because the weather was lovely, and nothing but talking 
 mild scandal seemed peaceful enough to fit in with it. I 
 did not see Chalker at first, and when I did behold him I 
 almost shrieked, for he was lying on the lawn face down- 
 wards, and I caught sight of a bottle labelled " Poison." 
 But I soon found that this was Chalker's usual position, 
 and that his favourite pursuit, I might almost say passion, 
 was to eradicate dandelions by piercing them to the heart 
 with a pointed weapon dipped into a very powerful poison. 
 I tested the power of the poison, because Chalker spilt 
 some on my new tennis shoes, and they almost disappeared 
 from view in a cloud. He said he was very sorry, but 
 what wonderful stuff it was. 
 
 I know nothing about 'gardening : the proper time to put 
 things in and take them out; the aspect that is best or 
 worst ; the cuttings and clippings and trimmings ; the soil 
 that will and will not suit the floral constitution ; the time 
 of year at which particular plants conduct themselves in a 
 particular way ; the best receipt for killing weeds on a path ; 
 the time for watering and for leaving it severely alone ; the 
 means of discriminating between a highly efficient and in- 
 dustrious gardener and a hopeless impostor who would 
 laugh at you in his sleeve if he had a coat on. All are
 
 HOW TOMKINS ENJOYED GARDENING 229 
 
 occult mysteries to me. Moreover, I thirst not for know- 
 ledge on any of these subjects, and I have a slight 
 tendency to obesity, and cannot abide stooping. It is 
 necessary to explain this, because no one can feel for me 
 that sympathy which I yearn for in the reader who does 
 not bear it in mind. 
 
 I made for the ladies, and talked for a while in my best 
 Piccadilly style. And then Mrs. Chalker suddenly made 
 an observation pregnant with consequences to me. 
 
 "We are all great gardeners, Mr. Tomkins, and my 
 husband has taken to it so vigorously that he hardly does 
 anything else when he's down here. Do you like gar- 
 dening ? " 
 
 I told a lie — a red-hot, unadulterated, heedless, wicked, 
 far-reaching lie. I said I did. Don't talk to me about the 
 wicked flourishing in this world. 
 
 " Oh, how delightful ! My husband will be so pleased. 
 Frank " (this to the back view of the grovelling Chalker), 
 " here's another recruit for you ! Mr. Tomkins loves 
 gardening ! " 
 
 Chalker jerked his head round as if he were swimming, 
 and had just changed to the side-stroke. 
 
 " That's splendid ! If you wouldn't mind helping Manders 
 and Pooley to bed out the geraniums they will bless you. 
 You had better take your coat off as it's warm work." 
 
 Manders, who was familiar with my habits, knew in his 
 secret soul that I was being let in, and I caught a malicious 
 twinkle in his eye as he welcomed my assistance. I bore 
 it in mind, and managed to ;drop a flower-pot on his hand 
 afterwards from a fairly good height. Pooley, on the other 
 hand, eyed me with a rather sour expression on his face.
 
 230 HOW TOM KINS ENJOYED GARDENING 
 
 and I perceived that he, as an old family friend, considered 
 the garden his special preserve, and was jealous of my 
 intrusion. 
 
 I meekly took my coat ofif, and asked how I could best 
 hell) them. Manders appealed to Pooley as gardener-in- 
 chief, and Pooley said very drily : — 
 
 " Perhaps Mr. Tomkins would like to do the bedding out 
 if we bring the plants to him." Thereupon Manders 
 sniggered. Hang them both ! 
 
 " No, thank you," I answered. " I can see you are a 
 master of the art, Mr. Pooley. I will humbly bring the 
 plants while you and Manders do the rest." 
 
 The plants of course were in the green-houses, and I 
 went backwards and forwards in the broiling sun, fetching 
 and carrying, for I cannot say how long. Now and again 
 Snokes joined in, not to do any real work, but just to show 
 that he knew how to carry four plants at a time when I 
 could only carry two, and that his clothes were too shabby 
 for it to hurt them, while mine, on the other hand, were 
 being ruined. 
 
 I might have put up with it more cheerfully if I could 
 have got anybody to talk to me. But the ladies were too 
 far off, Chalker was still lying with his nose close to the 
 ground, and Manders and Pooley were so engrossed in the 
 task of sticking in geraniums that they paid no more 
 attention to me than if I had been a lobworm. 
 
 At last I heard a welcome clinking of cups and saucers, 
 and tea was brought out into the garden. This, thought I, 
 must mean a cessation of degrading manual labour, a little 
 general conversation, and perchance a game of tennis in 
 the cool of the evening.
 
 HOW TOMKJNS ENJOYED GARDENING 231 
 
 Not so ; Chalker called out from the earth that he should 
 like to finish this bit of lawn, and would some one bring his 
 tea ; so a cup of tea was placed beside his bottle of poison 
 and he continued to lie on the grass. Pooley and Manders 
 were so ardently desirous of seeing the fruit of completed 
 labour on an enormous circular bed that they would not 
 have any tea at all ; and as Snokes had just gone off to 
 have his tea, I must needs go on drudging away between 
 the greenhouses and the beds, and say I did not mind. 
 
 Well, the circular bed was finished as the shades of 
 evening descended, and Chalker was persuaded to rise 
 reluctantly from his humiliating position. And then, as I 
 am a sinful man, the ladies, who had had their tea and 
 been for a little walk (I was not even asked if I would like 
 to go — Mrs. Chalker said she knew it was no good asking 
 any of us gardeners), broke out in a fresh place. They 
 said they must really do something to help, and began to 
 water the entire garden ; and they called for volunteers to 
 fetch cans of water to pour into their watering-pots. More 
 toil, resulting in making damp all the dry mould and dirt 
 on my clothes accumulated during my bondage under 
 Pooley and Manders. 
 
 How I blessed the bell that rang to announce that it was 
 time to dress for dinner ! How eagerly I cleaned myself 
 (washing does not express it) and put on fresh raiment, and 
 took my proper place in society ! I will say that Chalker 
 was hospitable and the dinner good. I will not even deny 
 a certain amount of calm satisfaction in sitting at ease after 
 hours of hard labour. I might even have enjoyed myself 
 if, after the ladies had retired early, Chalker, Pooley, and 
 Manders had not persisted in talking hard about gardening
 
 232 HOW TOMKINS ENJOYED GARDENING 
 
 till we went to bed, in spite of every effort I made to draw 
 the conversation into some other channel. 
 
 When we retired I slept soundly enough, as well I 
 might ; but I was not allowed the full measure of repose on 
 which I had reckoned. First I dreamt that I was on a 
 treadmill holding two pots of geraniums, which I was vainly 
 endeavouring to pass up to Pooley and Manders, who were 
 several steps higher up. Then I thought that a warder 
 with a face unaccountably like Chalker's kept calling to me 
 in a harsh voice to try harder and harder to reach them. 
 Then the warder's voice as well as his face seemed to 
 gradually get like Chalker's. Then I realised that it was 
 Chalker's voice, and that he was calling to me from outside 
 the window. 
 
 I rubbed my eyes, thinking now that it was a fire, and in 
 my half-awakened condition picturing myself bearing Mrs. 
 Chalker and Mrs. Manders to a place of safety at some 
 (but not too much) personal risk, and then putting an 
 anonymous account of it in the paper. Then I rose and 
 went to the window. Chalker was there, dressed exactly 
 as I had seen him on arrival yesterday^ " All England 
 Eleven " belt included. 
 
 " Pooley and Manders will be down in a minute," he 
 said. " It's a lovely morning, and we thought you'd like 
 to come." 
 
 " Come where ? " I asked, as the cold morning breeze 
 sported with my scanty covering, and I shivered. 
 
 " Oh, didn't we tell you ? We wanted to get some ivy 
 roots to climb up the rockery at the corner of the tennis 
 lawn, so we thought we'd get out early before breakfast. I 
 remember now, we arranged it before you came."
 
 HOW TOMKINS ENJOYED GARDENING 233 
 
 Just as Chalker finished speaking Manders bounded out 
 of the house Uke a school-boy. He looked up at me, and 
 taking in the situation at a glance indulged in a fiendish 
 grin at my expense. If a boulder had been handy to roll 
 down, Mander's life would have paid the penalty. 
 
 What was I to do ? I tried a feeble subterfuge. 
 " Thanks very much indeed," I replied with chattering 
 teeth, " I should like to come awfully, but somehow I 
 always get a headache if I go out on an empty stomach," 
 
 "So do I," replied the merciless Chalker, "and I always 
 provide against it, and you shall share my remedy." He 
 held up and broke in half before my eyes a specimen of 
 that appalling form of Spartan nutriment, a captain's 
 biscuit. I ask any unprejudiced person to say whether a 
 captain's biscuit is an article of food to contemplate with 
 anything but nausea before the latter part of the ninth day 
 on an open raft. 
 
 I retired from the window, put on the first clothes I 
 could find — what clothes, I don't know, but I rather think 
 flannel trousers and a frock-coat were the mainstay. Then 
 I slunk down unshaven, unwashed, chilled to the marrow, 
 to receive from the hands of Chalker the baked paving- 
 stone before alluded to. Pooley came out at the same 
 moment, and I could see him looking scornfully at me 
 from the corners of his eyes as I vainly tried to find a tooth 
 which might have some chance of not breaking in pieces if 
 it seriously contended with Chalker's horrid gift. 
 
 I remember having cherished in early life the preposterous 
 fiction that it is a fine thing, a healthy and enjoyable pas- 
 time, to go and bathe in the sea before breakfast. I have 
 on more than one occasion formed one of a shivering party
 
 234 HO IV TOM KINS ENJOYED GARDENING 
 
 assembled at early dawn with blue gills and internal sink- 
 ings, all declaring to each other with most unnecessary 
 vehemence what splendid fun it was. I had long given 
 over such shams and follies when I went to stay with 
 Chalker, but as we started off to get ivy roots at break of 
 dawn, with a cold mist permeating our respective vitals, I 
 began almost to feel for an imaginary towel round my neck, 
 and to wonder whether, when I came out of the water, my 
 socks and shirt would be floating about as usual in the 
 bathing-machine. 
 
 We had not even a bracing walk to bring the glow of 
 health to my blanched cheek. Chalker's house was situated 
 so close to the vicinity of ivy that he began to prog for it in 
 the bank by the roadside almost before we had emerged 
 from the front gate, and very soon he and Manders and 
 Pooley were hard at work grubbing out damp roots, which 
 they gave me to hold in a basket. At last I grew bold and 
 spake. 
 
 " Do you know," I said to Chalker, " I feel a bit chilly? 
 If you don't mind, I will put this basket down and take a 
 good turn just to get the circulation up." 
 
 " By all means," replied he ; " but I can promise you 
 some warm work after breakfast ; so I hope you won't tire 
 yourself beforehand. We have a tremendous job to 
 tackle ! " 
 
 '' Oh ! " replied I faintly, " what is that ? " 
 
 " Why, didn't I tell you ? Oh no, I remember this was 
 arranged also before you came. Well, you may have 
 noticed rather a bare corner at the end of the garden, near 
 the rose-trees. We are going up to the common to get 
 stones to make a rockery there, and then get some ferns to
 
 HOW TOMKINS ENJOYED GARDENING 23 
 
 put in. We can bring some in a wheelbarrow and carry 
 others, and we shall have to go backwards and forwards a 
 good many times, and carry some pretty big weights before 
 we've done. Pooley thought of it, and Manders and I 
 agreed it would be great fun, besides being no end of an 
 improvement to the garden. We shall welcome another 
 willing hand immensely to help us, and my wife tells me 
 you like gardening better than anything in the world." 
 
 That vindictive, unabashed lie of mine was finding me 
 out with a vengeance, and Mrs. Chalker had evidently 
 been improving on it in nuptial confidences till I hardly 
 knew it by sight. 
 
 I looked round me for a victim, and I saw Manders in a 
 stooping position, eagerly clutching at an ivy-root, with his 
 head in juxtaposition to a clump of stinging nettles. What 
 was more, Manders appeared to me to be shaking like a jelly- 
 fish, as if nurturing iUicit mirth. In one moment I realised 
 that he had heard Chalker's observations and was laughing 
 at me, and in two moments Manders was sprawling in the 
 nettles, while I stood by and grimly apologised for stumbling 
 against him. Manders did not score that time, anyhow. 
 
 When we returned from this expedition, Chalker, with 
 Pooley and Manders, made straight for the rockery up 
 which the ivy-roots were expected to climb. I, for my part, 
 essayed to hand Manders the basket and sneak indoors to 
 go to bed again, or to shave, or to wash, or do anything 
 to get away from horticulture in its damp and early form. 
 But Manders had been hurt by the flower-pot and stung by 
 the nettles, and he was not going to let me off now. He 
 blandly disregarded the proffered basket. 
 
 " Why, Chalker," he said, " here's this modest chap pro-
 
 236 HOW TOM KINS ENJOYED GARDENING 
 
 posing to retire after helping us in all the hard work, and 
 when we are just going to reap the fruits of it. And all the 
 time I know he is bursting to put in some of the roots if 
 you'll let him." 
 
 Chalker protested that he would not hear of my going in, 
 and indeed, he said that he had counted on my taking his 
 place, as he knew I should like it, and he just wanted to 
 slay a few more dandelions before breakfast now that the 
 sun was out and the grass not too wet to lie down on it. 
 Whereupon he fetched his poison and his pointed instrument 
 and once more crawled upon the ground in a despicable 
 attitude. 
 
 Left with Pooley and Manders I was helpless and hope- 
 less. They set to work to stick iri ivy roots, which they 
 inserted with great dexterity. I tried to follow their 
 example, but I could not get any ivy roots to stick some- 
 how, whether because I did not put them in deep enough, 
 or because I selected spots that had no depth of soil, I can- 
 not say. I only know that Pooley scowled at my failures, 
 and Manders smiled (but he had to smile through nettle- 
 rash, which was some comfort), and that on turning my 
 head round once to use bad language without being heard 
 I encountered the gaze of Snokes, who was watching me 
 with absorbed attention, and seemed to think I was making 
 a fool of myself for his morning amusement. I resolved on 
 the spot that when I left I would not tip Snokes so much 
 as a threepenny bit. 
 
 The ladies came out just before breakfast and rallied us 
 on our enthusiasm. I would have given much to confess 
 all, but I had not the moral courage and could only reply 
 with a wan smile as I passed them to go indoors.
 
 HOW TOM KINS ENJOYED GARDENING 237 
 
 The expedition in search of stones was the main subject 
 of conversation at breakfast, and Chalker spoke of it as if he 
 were giving a splendid entertainment. 
 
 " You mustn't overtire Mr. Tomkins, Frank, dear," said 
 Mrs. Chalker, looking kindly at me; "remember you have 
 all been up very early." 
 
 " Oh ! you needn't be afraid of that," broke in Manders, 
 "Tomkins is as strong as a horse. Aren't you, old chap?" 
 
 I could not trust myself to answer Manders for fear of 
 saying something that would have broken up the party, so 
 I took a large bite of toast. 
 
 " Perhaps Mr. Tomkins would prefer to go for a drive 
 with us ladies/' resumed my hostess. 
 
 Here was my chance. 
 
 " Thank you very much, I " 
 
 "Now, my dear," interposed Chalker, "don't you know 
 that Mr. Tomkins is devoted to gardening, and what 
 possible comparison is there between tamely driving in 
 a cart and assisting in the glorious enterprise we have 
 in view ? He can't say no to you because of the laws of 
 politeness, so I must say it for him." 
 
 Dear, kind, opportune Chalker ! 
 
 So the ladies went off for a delightful drive, and I stood 
 and watched them at the gate till Chalker roared out from 
 the stable yard to ask if I would like to wheel one of the 
 barrows up the hill that led to the common. 
 
 Three times did I toil up that hill and down again, some- 
 times on the return journey carrying as many stones as I 
 could hold, and sometimes wheeling a barrowful of them. 
 The fourth time was to be the last, and I breathed a sigh 
 of intense relief as we reached the common, loaded our-
 
 238 HOW TOM KINS ENJOYED GARDENING 
 
 selves, and started back again. I was not wheeling the 
 barrow on that occasion, but carrying a great block of stone 
 under which I almost staggered. 
 
 I don't know how it was done. A rut in the road, a 
 loose stone, sonnething made my foot slip, and in a moment 
 I had lost my balance and was down, with the stone I was 
 carrying on the top of me as if I were dead and had a 
 monument erected over me already. Acute pains in the 
 right knee and left ankle, bruised sensations all over — all 
 these I instantly experienced. But at once and through all 
 there came a sweet peaceful feeling of deep and heartfelt 
 thankfulness, a sense of infinite relief, a consciousness of 
 having reached a haven of repose, 
 
 / cou/d not be asked to do any more gardening. 
 
 When I tried to rise I could not stand, much less walk, 
 so the stones were emptied out of the barrow, and I was 
 wheeled home, like Mr. Pickwick on a celebrated occasion, 
 but in a more creditable condition. 
 
 Chalker was deeply concerned about me. Manders 
 looked as penitent as if he had done it himself, and even 
 Pooley melted and was kind to me. And then when the 
 doctor came and pronounced that I had sprained my ankle 
 and dislocated my knee, besides being badly bruised, how 
 jolly it was to see them all so sorry and so attentive to my 
 wants. How I was carried out into the garden like a dear 
 little baby. How the ladies ministered to me like angels. 
 How Snokes sidled up and said well, he was sorry, he was, 
 that he was. How the maid-servants peeped at me sym^ 
 pathetically whenever they had a chance. How the parish 
 clergyman called and left a card with kind inquiries, having 
 been positively informed in the village that I had fallen
 
 HOW TOM KINS ENJOYED GARDENING 239 
 
 down a gravel pit and broken both legs and one arm. How 
 contentedly I watched Chalker at his dandelions, and Pooley 
 and Manders labouring in various ways that were not my 
 ways, while Mrs. Chalker and Mrs. Manders talked to me 
 in soothing and sisterly tones, and pitied me for not being 
 able to work in the garden with the others. 
 
 I tell you I never enjoyed a stay at a country house so 
 much in all my life.
 
 ( 240 ) 
 
 AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART 
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 [The following tale of true love has been recounted to me 
 by a middle-aged solicitor, who was a fellow articled-clerk 
 of mine thirty odd years ago. I narrate it in the first per- 
 son singular, not because the story had anything to do with 
 me personally — such a supposition would be laughable, if 
 not libellous — but as being the more direct and simple 
 method to follow. To dissociate myself from it beyond all 
 possibility of doubt, I had thought of putting the whole 
 paper into quotation, but I am told that inverted commas, 
 if extensively used in print, are very expensive, and also 
 rather bewildering to the eye of the reader.] 
 
 PART I 
 
 ACROSS THE BAR 
 
 Of all things to bring back to my memory a love episode of 
 my youth, I suppose nothing odder could be imagined than 
 the fact of my reading in a newspaper that Newgate was 
 being demolished. Nevertheless, that announcement con- 
 ducted me straight back to a subterranean restaurant in 
 Newgate Street, and to a young lady who officiated on the
 
 AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART 241 
 
 business side of a luncheon counter in that establishment. 
 Her name was Alice Simpson and I loved her, though my 
 parents knew it not. They were also unaware that I offered 
 her my hand and heart almost every time I visited the 
 establishment after the first three or four occasions, and 
 that she neither accepted nor refused the same, but avoided 
 any direct answer to my suit in a manner that I now con- 
 sider skilful. Being only eighteen years old, and at an 
 early stage of my Articles, I was compelled to do so under 
 the reservation of her waiting for me nine or ten years, 
 which was, I admit, a long time, especially for one who had 
 to wait behind a bar. If my suit had prospered — and oh ! 
 how I wished it might then — I wonder whether Miss AHce 
 Simpson would have been ultimately raised by me to the 
 exalted station which I now by universal acclaim occupy, 
 and whether she would have adorned the same, or whether 
 I should have descended by easy stages to playing pot- 
 man to her barmaid ; also, whether we should have loved 
 each other ever more and more, or alternately summoned 
 each other to the Police Court for assault. Such specula- 
 tions are the idlest of the idle, but they have a certain 
 attraction, nevertheless, for the thoughtful-minded. 
 
 She was tall, stylish-looking, and very pretty, on the fair 
 side (I don't mean her fair side, but the fair side of beauty), 
 and she dressed with considerable taste, though perhaps just 
 a little loudly. Her golden-brown hair did duty at the back 
 of her shapely head as the outer covering of a chignon of 
 about the size and shape of a Rugby football. I remark, 
 parenthetically, that this generation can never hope to see 
 that curiosity in the way of unspeakably appalling disfigure- 
 ment of woman, the chignon, which flourished in my youth, 
 
 Q
 
 242 AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART 
 
 and that: my Alice — at least, she wasn't my Alice, but I 
 wanted her to be so — was in no way out of the fashion of 
 her day in that respect, unless perhaps that her chignon 
 may have been one size larger than the average article at 
 that particular time. If it was, she did but play the part of 
 a pioneer, for the chignon ultimately grew to be as large as 
 a balloon, and then very properly burst and was seen no 
 more. Her voice was soothing to the ear, though I have 
 to admit that her aspirates were intermittent and her 
 grammar not faultless. It was one of my day-dreams that 
 I would gently and patiently lure her into the use of the 
 letter *' h," in moderation, in those places where it ought to 
 be, and its omission where it was an intruder, and give her 
 lessons in the construction of elegant sentences, thus re- 
 moving the only blemishes in an otherwise perfect woman. 
 Her age was never known to me, and never will be now, 
 but I fancy she must have been not far short of thirty. 
 Did I ever think then that she was a bit lengthy in the 
 tooth, and that there was a difference in years between us 
 on the wrong side ? Most certainly not. Enough for me 
 that the world contained only one woman worthy to be 
 loved, and that the peerless party in question was Alice 
 Simpson. 
 
 I cannot recall exactly how it came to pass that I first 
 paid what proved to be a momentous visit to the establish- 
 ment in which Alice was a dispenser of solid and liquid 
 refreshment to the public. The office in which I was 
 articled was in the heart of the city, and I had no near 
 relatives or friends confined in Newgate at the time, while 
 the hours during which I was out of the office were largely 
 spent farther westward, in attending at Courts, Public
 
 AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART 243 
 
 1-egal Offices, and Chambers of Counsel, in the pursuit 
 of knowledge. I must have stumbled on it somehow in 
 search of lunch, when stranded in that direction, and before 
 I had got through two sawdusty ham-sandwiches and half 
 a pint of bitter ale, this heart — now fit only to go into Dock 
 at Bad Nauheim — was all in a flutter on account of Alice, 
 the fair, the beautiful, the gracious, the enchanting, the — the 
 — in fact, the barmaid. If there had been twelve barmaids 
 there, she would still have been to me fAe barmaid, but, as a 
 matter of fact, she was the only one, for it was not a large 
 place, and the proprietor and his wife, assisted by AHce, 
 represented the staff. 
 
 I opened a bashful conversation across the bar, and 
 lingered inordinately over my simple repast, gazing the 
 while at her who was on the other side of the counter, 
 and when I left Alice transported me (I have said it was 
 close to Newgate, but I don't mean that sort of transporta- 
 tion), by saying she hoped I would come in again. Come 
 in again ! By George ! dear reader, I haunted the place, 
 and lunch anywhere else would have been a sacrilege. It 
 nearly choked me there with emotion, for I fell most 
 desperately and hopelessly in love with Alice, and first 
 confessed my love through the interstices of a beer-engine 
 at my third or it might have been my fourth visit. She 
 said I was a foolish boy, though she seemed gratified, and, 
 as I have already hinted, all my pleadings, then and after- 
 wards, failed to draw any declaration from her. To lawyers 
 of mature age there is a subtle joke of some merit embedded 
 in that sentence, for the detection of which a small prize 
 may perhaps be offered when better times come. 
 
 It is human to err. It is also human to love, and I
 
 244 AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART 
 
 don't claim to have discovered the art, but this I will s 
 that to make love as I did across a bar counter, 
 restaurant, with the proprietor and his wife skirm' aig 
 about on one side, and promiscuous visits from rr .bers 
 of the public occurring at frequent intervals on the other 
 side, demanded from me an amount of devotion, dexterity, 
 and patience that baffles description. A bar counter re- 
 member is wide. The object of affection cannot be 
 embraced across it even if she be so disposed ; and my 
 wildest hopes in that way never soared beyond an occasional 
 dab at Alice's hand, which I had to pretend was accidental, 
 and which generally missed the object aimed at. Then 
 again, think of the pangs endured by me when compliments 
 were paid to her by other visitors — men with whiskers, 
 full-blown, self-assured, offensive men. I told myself a 
 thousand times that these made no real impression on her, 
 that of course she had to be civil to customers or she 
 would get into trouble with her employers, that it would 
 not be for long — only for nine or ten years — and then I 
 should carry her away as my blooming bride {I use the 
 word blooming in the sense in which it is applied to the 
 peach and not as an expletive), and would slay any one 
 who so much as looked at her. But I derived only slender 
 comfort from these attempts to console myself, and was 
 consumed with jealousy as with a fever. 
 
 Also it was an expensive time. When the heart is full 
 of love it is a relief to give presents to the adored one, and 
 moreover, she expects it. I asked Alice the size of her 
 hand for gloves, and she put it out across the counter and 
 said eights. I touched her hand that time — the whole 
 eight of it if I may use the expression — and next day I
 
 AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART 245 
 
 presented her with three pairs. I am able at this distance 
 of time to acknowledge dispassionately that eights is large 
 for a woman, and that Alice's hand might in time have be- 
 come a trial to me if my hopes had been realised and it had 
 become mine, and I can also now thankfully remember that 
 the price of gloves did not depend upon the size. 
 
 A pair of ear-rings was presented by me shortly after- 
 wards, and in consequence of the expense of that offering 
 my watch secretly disappeared from my pocket at the 
 same time. I wore a spoon-bait (after first detaching the 
 hooks) at the end of the chain so that the deficiency might 
 not be noticed at home or detected by prying eyes at the 
 office, and once on being asked the time in the street I 
 took the spoon-bait out before I remembered, which was 
 embarrassing. Then one day a vendor of miscellaneous 
 articles of use and ornament came into the restaurant, 
 partly bent on liquid refreshment and partly in the hope 
 of business. He placed on the counter a box containing 
 his wares while he partook of a pint of stout, but his right 
 eye, which was lodged, as it were, on the outer rim of the 
 pewter pot was fixed intently on me while he was drinking, 
 as I noticed when I happened to turn round in a momentary 
 pause between my whispers of words of devotion to Alice 
 across that dreadful expanse of counter. Then he pushed 
 the box in an absent way, so that it was immediately in 
 front of her, and she began to toy with its contents. She 
 took up a fruit-knife, and said it was lovely. 
 
 " How much is it ? " I asked the man. 
 
 " Ten-and-six, it's solid silver," he replied, doubtless 
 prepared to be beaten down to about half-a-crown, and 
 make a good profit then. But one who loves as I loved
 
 246 AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART 
 
 does not beat down vendors of fruit-knives where the object 
 is to present it to the adored one, and I whipped out 
 ten shillings and sixpence like a lord, and presented the 
 knife to the blushing AUce. As a matter of fact it was my 
 next week's allowance for lunches. I could not go without 
 lunch, because then I should have had to deny myself to 
 Alice, or rather Alice to myself, lunch being the peg of all 
 my visits, so the gap had to be made good by the secret 
 realisation of my winter overcoat, which I did not so much 
 mind as it was summer time. The man looked very 
 pleased, as he had good reason to be, and departed with 
 profuse thanks, and the proprietor's wife, attracted by the 
 incident, came and, looking over Alice's shoulder at the 
 knife, said she was a very lucky girl to get such a nice pre- 
 sent, and then told me that I must not spoil her. It was 
 a proud moment, and I considered it cheap at the price. 
 
 When a solicitor's articled clerk expires before his 
 articles of clerkship it is the very right and proper custom 
 for the solicitor to return a proportionate part of the fee 
 received with the departed one. No such return is made 
 however during any period in which the articled clerk is 
 in love, and thereby totally incapacitated for the time 
 being from deriving any benefit from his apprenticeship, 
 and I invite attention to the point as one that seems to me 
 deserving of consideration. Take my case, for instance. 
 During the period — which lasted some months — in which 
 I loved Alice Simpson to distraction I might have been 
 inside Newgate prison, instead of a frequenter of the 
 restaurant hard by, for any advance that I made in my 
 professional training. To begin with I had to lunch at 
 that bar every day or die in the attempt. I shirked every
 
 AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART 247 
 
 piece of work that interfered with it, and made the most 
 outrageous and insincere excuses for my acts of default. 
 Then I used to linger over lunch till Alice was obliged to 
 tell me to go, as the proprietor would not like it. And to 
 this has to be added the hindrance to work represented by 
 my adoration for that young woman ; my jealousy on her 
 account ; my ardent hope that one day — nine or ten years 
 hence as aforesaid — she would be mine ; the composition 
 of verses in her honour (she said they were beautiful, but 
 I doubt now whether she read them, and one poem 
 accidentally dropped into a plate of Irish stew, because 
 I slipped it over the counter at an awkward moment) ; the 
 shifts and devices to which I was put in order to lay offer- 
 ings upon her altar — I mean her counter — and at the 
 same time keep up appearances on my very slender 
 allowance and rapidly diminishing personal effects ; the 
 one consuming, absorbing, never-absent subject of Alice. 
 What did, what could, all this leave over for the duties of 
 my articled state and the study of those beautiful, con- 
 sistent, simple, satisfying laws of England which are now 
 my only solace in life ? I answer nothing at all. I was as 
 one dead to the law for the time being, and some allowance, 
 I don't say a full proportionate allowance, but a sort of 
 Articled-Clerk-in-love Compensation Act allowance, should, 
 I think, really be made in such cases. If this simple little 
 suggestion commends itself to the profession and becomes 
 generally adopted I shall not have loved Alice Simpson in 
 vain, and even the expenditure of ten-and-sixpence on the 
 fruit-knife will come back to me upon the waters, not in a 
 gross or material form but in the consciousness of good 
 work accomplished.
 
 248 AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART 
 
 PART II 
 
 BEYOND THE BARRIER 
 
 It may seem strange that my communications with the 
 object of my affections have thus far been referred to only 
 in connection with the trammels of a bar counter. The 
 intelligent reader who has known himself what it is to love 
 (and all of my readers are necessarily intelligent and have 
 almost necessarily loved) will have been struck by the 
 thought that, granting my inability to scale a bar counter 
 without being ejected at once from properly conducted 
 licensed premises, AUce Simpson cannot always have been 
 on the other side of the barr' that she probably did not 
 live on the premises at all, and that she had to come in 
 the morning and to d^^i orobably with some alacrity in 
 the evening. Why then, it will be asked, was not I round 
 the corner? Why did I not seek opportunity of seeing 
 Alice home in the evem. ■ to her domestic abode, which 
 I may say at once w^s in Shoreditch ? 
 
 I am able to reply to these questions in a manner that 
 reflects the highest credit on me. Whether it reflected 
 any credit on Alice remains to be shown. All that the 
 reader would have expected me to do in my situation, and 
 more, I was longing, burning, dying to do. I besought 
 Alice to let me come and meet her in the morning and 
 conduct her to the scene of her daily labours. I begged 
 her to meet me in the evening at the third lamp-post on the 
 left as you go towards St. Sepulchre's, and let me see her 
 home. I talked imploringly about dress-circle seats for
 
 AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART 249 
 
 two (to take which my chain would have had to follow my 
 watch), and my arrival at any given spot and time in a 
 hansom cab to escort her to a theatre. I poured across 
 that beer-slopped bar entreaties enough to melt a heart 
 of stone that I might pursue the acquaintance at closer 
 range. But it was all in vain. The invariable answer was 
 to the effect that her pa (that's what she called him) would 
 not like it, and had a dreadful temper, and was sure to 
 find out, and that she had given him her solemn promise 
 never to meet a gentleman. This last remark was of 
 course to be taken in a figurative or rather technical sense, 
 and implied meeting a gentleman for the purpose of listen- 
 ing to professions of love. Alice being in my eyes of fancy 
 on a pedestal of virtue as well as beauty, as well as to my 
 ordinary eyes located behind the obstacle so often men- 
 tioned ante, I honoured her for her high-minded conduct 
 as a daughter, though with the inconsistency of human 
 nature I regarded her father as a hard-hearted tyrant. 
 
 How long this state of affairs might have lasted if some- 
 thing had not occurred that did occur, how much of that 
 prescribed waiting period of between nine and ten years 
 might have slipped away while I still took my prolonged 
 daily lunch in Newgate Street, exhausted my very slender 
 exchequer, dreamed my day-dream, neglected my legal 
 studies, and adored Alice Simpson, can never be known 
 now. That is a self-evident proposition, but it is meant 
 for moralising, and I must ask to have it accepted as such. 
 It paves the way to the dinoument. 
 
 One day I became possessed of a private box at the 
 Adelphi Theatre, one of the snug private boxes that used 
 in those days to run all round the back of the dress circle.
 
 250 AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART 
 
 It was given to me by one of our clerks who used to hang 
 upon the fringe of the dramatic profession out of office 
 hours. His possession of it, and his willingness to bestow 
 it upon me, implied in a double way that the piece was 
 a failure, though I did not see it then, nor does the fact 
 bear upon my tale in the least. The material fact is that 
 I had the box, and that I placed it on the counter before 
 Alice, and commenced my two hundred and forty-fifth 
 assault upon her impregnable resolution not to see me 
 outside the restaurant. But before I could shape a few 
 well-chosen sentences in which I meant to refer to the 
 state of my heart once more, to the fact that the Adelphi 
 Theatre was quite in the first rank of the West-End theatres, 
 and to the great ease and luxury in which two people might 
 occupy a box large enough for four — before, I say, I had 
 time to clothe these sentiments in fitting language Alice 
 interposed and said that she should like very much to go 
 if her sister and a friend might come too. 
 
 The presence of others was not in my programme, as 
 may be supposed, but any passing disappointment on that 
 score was swallowed up in my joy at the thought that Alice 
 had at last consented to spend an evening in my company. 
 I felt that it was the thin end of the wedge, the successful 
 storming of whatever has to be stormed first when you do 
 storm. 
 
 The details were soon arranged, and on the eventful 
 evening I was actually permitted by previous arrangement 
 to call in a four-wheeled cab for Alice, her sister, and the 
 friend, at Alice's own parents' address in Shoreditch, which 
 she told me for the first time. She also told me that they 
 (the parents) knew all about it and did not mind a bit.
 
 AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART 251 
 
 This sounded to me almost like a blessing upon our union, 
 and as for my own parents, I felt sure I could overcome 
 their opposition in time, and I did not propose to mention 
 the matter to them for five or six years, so that I might be 
 able to point to the length of my attachment as evidence 
 that it was unchangeable. 
 
 With many flutterings of heart, and gulpings in the throat, 
 and inward searchings as to my personal appearance, I drove 
 up to the door in evening dress with an enormous bouquet 
 for Alice, and quite a little crowd assembled when I got 
 out and made for the door with my bouquet, because 
 Shoreditch is not accustomed to the sight of young gentle- 
 men in evening dress carrying such articles, or at all 
 events was not then. Moreover, public curiosity may have 
 had zest added to it on seeing me enter in that condition 
 a very modest and unmistakable public-house. Yes, I 
 cannot disguise that Alice was, as I then discovered, the 
 daughter of a Shoreditch publican. I was intended to 
 ring at a side-door which led to the private apartments of 
 the family, but in my agitation I went straight through the 
 public entrance, and found myself in the company of two 
 cab-drivers and a few other persons of bibulous aspect 
 whom I very much astonished by my appearance. I 
 backed out hastily just as they were recovering self-pos- 
 session, and beginning to hail me in a manner not be- 
 fitting my dignity, and I got into the street to find Alice 
 and her sister and the friend on the pavement. They had 
 seen me and the cab from an upper window and had de- 
 scended. Alice and her sister (who was like her, but not 
 nearly so transcendently beautiful) were visions in muslin 
 and other evening accessories, not omitting a plentiful
 
 252 AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART 
 
 amount of jewellery which I thought very fine at the time, 
 though I question now whether it would have attracted a 
 burglar ; and the friend to whom I was introduced was a 
 young man with ginger whiskers, an awful voice, and a ter- 
 rible accent. He was, and he was not, in evening dress ; 
 that is to say, he had on a white tie and black clothes, but 
 the tails of his coat were not swallow-tails, and it was, not 
 to put too fine a point upon it, a morning suit of the 
 undertaker species. This was a blow, especially as the 
 ticket said that evening dress was indispensable, but I may 
 say at once that the friend passed scrutiny at the doors. It 
 must indeed have been a failure that piece. 
 
 Alice had been reticent about the friend, and at first I 
 did not even know whether it was man or woman, but 
 when I learnt it was a man I guessed at once that it was 
 in reality the sister's lover, and Alice smiled when I 
 hazarded that conjecture, and said she shouldn't wonder. 
 So I had it all settled in my mind that the sister and the 
 friend would be wholly absorbed in each other's society 
 while Alice and I would never take our respective eyes off 
 each other. 
 
 A brief introduction took place in the street, in which 
 the public appeared to take a great, but I am bound to 
 add not a respectful interest, and we then huddled into the 
 cab, and moved off to the sound of a cheer, which I much 
 fear was derisive. 
 
 I felt a little shy, as being the youngest of the party, and, 
 so to speak, the host, and in . i'lition to this I was beset 
 with doubts all through the journey as to what view might 
 be taken by the authorities at the theatre on the subject of 
 the ginger-whiskered friend's very far from indispensable
 
 AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART 253 
 
 evening dress. It is also the fact that at the best of times 
 conversation in a four-wheeled cab is difficult to maintain 
 at high pressure. A hand may be squeezed effectively, but 
 somehow Alice had got out of range, for she was neither 
 beside me nor immediately opposite to me. I do not 
 know the correct mathematical expression, and merely 
 therefore put it to the reader as a problem to find the 
 relative positions of self and Alice in that cab, assisting 
 him or her to the extent of stating that the sister sat 
 opposite to me and Ginger Whiskers next to me. 
 
 This was a small matter compared to the trials that 
 awaited me when we got into my box — my box, not the 
 box of Ginger Whiskers, but mine. Not only did Alice 
 look at the piece instead of me, not only did she " sssssh " 
 at me when I sought to murmur tender words so that she 
 only should hear them, not only did she move her hand 
 away dexterously whenever I pounced on it, not only did 
 she interpose bits of chair and sister and Ginger Whiskers 
 between me and her whenever I attempted a siege move- 
 ment — not only this, but Alice and sister and Ginger 
 Whiskers talked incessantly /<? eac/i other when not attend- 
 ing to the play, and upon subjects foreign to my know- 
 ledge, and Ginger Whiskers assumed an air of easy 
 familiarity to them, and general proprietorship of the box 
 and the ladies in it, that was positively indecent. Hardly 
 any attention was paid to me — me the patron of the 
 evening — in fact nont. at all, except when I proposed 
 libations and ices, of which an inordinate quantity were 
 consumed at my expense. I was neglected to an extent 
 that hurt my tenderest feelings deeply, and pangs unspeak- 
 able were added to my lacerated bosom when I beheld
 
 254 AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART 
 
 Alice quite as familiar and friendly with G. W. (for full 
 name see ante, it is too painful to go on repeating it) as 
 her sister, and if anything more so. To say that I suffered 
 horribly is to convey only a most inadequate idea of what 
 manner of evening I passed. 
 
 When the play was over — it was a tragic play, but light 
 comedy to what had been going on in a certain private 
 box — I sought to conduct AHce forth, but her sister made 
 a grab at my arm, and I emerged with her in that position, 
 and Alice behind, with her arm nearly up to the elbow 
 through that of Ginger Whiskers. Another crushing blow 
 to my hopes. 
 
 Then came the return journey. I had proposed to con- 
 duct the party home, and had delicately hinted that I 
 might perhaps be allowed to come in for a few minutes, 
 but Alice, while accepting the first offer, had assured me 
 that pa wouldn't think of allowing a gentleman into the 
 house at that time of the evening, and that we must say 
 good-bye at the door of her abode. So we journeyed back 
 to Shoreditch again in a four-wheeler. Here again I was 
 intending to suggest two hansoms, but the sister adhered 
 to me like a barnacle, and to take her in a hansom was 
 not at all the idea. I was, therefore, again placed in the 
 same position as regards Alice in a four-wheeler, and I 
 again paid for the cab; and when we got out the three 
 bolted into the house like rabbits and hardly said good- 
 night. I say the three, and I mean it, for pa's objection 
 to gentlemen coming in evidently did not extend to Ginger 
 Whiskers. I thought bitterly of this as I stood on the 
 pavement alone and heard giggling inside the door as the 
 party closed it, and I said to myself savagely that perhaps
 
 AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART 255 
 
 pa did not object to G. W. on the ground that he cer- 
 tainly was not a gentleman, whatever he was. I nearly 
 hissed it through the keyhole in my bafHed misery. 
 
 I returned home, a wretched being, that night, terribly 
 hit in the pocket by the expenses, grievously shaken and 
 hurt in my most sensitive feelings by the heart-breaking 
 disappointment, and the conviction which kept rising 
 before me as a spectre that Alice did not, could not love 
 me, or she would have behaved more affectionately and 
 have eaten fewer ices. And after a sleepless night I 
 resolved to punish her by staying away from the luncheon 
 bar for several days, and to allow her thus to wonder what 
 had become of me, and whether perhaps I was floating 
 in the Thames a victim of heartless neglect on the part of 
 a loved object. 
 
 I did stay away — one — two — three days. It was a sore 
 struggle, and several times I walked more than half-way to 
 Newgate Street and then forced myself to turn back. On 
 the fourth day I could stand it no longer, and in I went 
 with my heart in my mouth. Was I dreaming, or was 
 another young woman behind the bar in Alice's place, a 
 young woman with no pretensions to beauty and an exag- 
 gerated urbanity of manner, a young woman who called me 
 " young gentleman," and asked what she could get for me 
 in a peculiarly dreadful arch manner ? I looked so utterly, 
 vacuously, astonished, and struck all of a heap, that the 
 proprietor's wife, who I suppose had watched my demea- 
 nour in the altered circumstances with some curiosity, came 
 along the Bar and spoke. 
 
 " Were you expecting Miss Simpson ? Didn't she tell 
 you ? "
 
 256 AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART 
 
 " Tell me what ? " I answered faintly. 
 
 "Tell you she was leaving here yesterday — she gave a 
 week's notice last week." 
 
 I suppose I gasped out or looked an inquiry as to why 
 she had left, or where she had gone, for the woman went on : 
 " She left to be married to a young man she had been keep- 
 ing company with some time. 'E never came 'ere and I 
 don't know 'is name even, but my 'usband saw 'em together 
 in the street one hevening when the young man 'ad waited 
 outside to see 'er 'ome, which 'e did every hevening, and 'e 
 said the young man was nothing particular to look at." 
 
 "Did your husband happen to say what the man was 
 like?" I murmured. 
 
 " No. I don't think 'e took no notice. Yes, 'e did say 
 that 'is whiskers was ginger-coloured." 
 
 I rushed from the restaurant, mad with love, rage, hate, 
 misery, despair. 
 
 I walked about for hours, like one distracted. 
 
 I very nearly jumped over Waterloo Bridge. 
 
 I had done with this cold, heartless world. 
 
 Woman spelt perfidy. 
 
 I would never so much as take a passing interest in any 
 woman again as long as I lived — if I decided to live at all. 
 
 For weeks I went about hiding within my breast a broken 
 heart. 
 
 For weeks I hardly spoke a civil word at home or abroad. 
 
 After a period (not a very long period) of unutterable 
 misery I began to realise that there were other fish in the sea. 
 
 Then it dawned upon me that Alice was a good bit older 
 than I was.
 
 AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART 257 
 
 Then it forced itself upon me that an alliance with a bar- 
 maid, following a previous engagement of nine or ten years, 
 might not have been the best possible thing for me, or a 
 source of unalloyed rejoicing to my family. 
 
 Then it struck me that after all Alice had never com- 
 mitted herself to me in any way, and that, saving for a 
 readiness to accept gifts, which was natural with a fool at 
 one end and a barmaid at the other, she had in fact rather 
 staved off my advances. See how philosophy was gradually 
 shedding its mantle over me. 
 
 Then I was glad she had married Ginger Whiskers instead 
 of me. 
 
 Then I took up my neglected legal studies with a smitten 
 conscience, and worked like a Trojan. 
 
 But I kept the affair very dark, and never revealed to 
 living soul the cause of my strange and highly objectionable 
 demeanour towards my family and friends during that bad 
 time, not even to an anxious mother, who would fain have 
 given me comfort if I had lifted so much as a corner of tiie 
 curtain that concealed my bitter thoughts and morbid looks. 
 Indeed, I may go so far as to say to you, my reader, that 
 you are absolutely the first person to whom a secret, pickled 
 and preserved for more than thirty years, has been at last 
 laid bare.
 
 ( 258 ) 
 
 FORGIVEN GREATLY 
 
 At a period of English history too remote for the fact to 
 have found place in any authentic chronicles, I lived in a 
 set of chambers on the top floor of a building in Barnard's 
 Inn, Holborn. It may be presumed that I was young, and 
 that I had no money either to speak of or to chink in my 
 pocket. How I earned a modest living does not concern 
 the dear reader, nor is it material to the present narrative, 
 but, to nip in the bud any inferences that might otherwise 
 be drawn, I may incidentally mention that I did not receive 
 stolen goods ; that I was not a member of a long firm, or, 
 for that matter, any firm at all ; that I did not reproduce 
 imitations of lost pages in old books with intent to enable 
 dealers in the same to deceive the public with an alleged 
 perfect copy of the first edition ; that I was not a company 
 promoter of the baser sort, or any sort ; that I did not write 
 begging letters for myself or any one else ; that I did not 
 utter counterfeit coin, or anything worse than an occasional 
 cry of despair, and then only because the British public did 
 not recognise my claims to be regarded as one of the most 
 remarkable young men of that or any other time. I have 
 mentioned, I believe, all the principal crimes, but if there 
 be any more, please note that I did not, to use the terrible 
 clipped form of composition in favour with some lawyers, 
 "commit same," and that my occupation, if not lucrative,
 
 FORGIVEN GREATLY 259 
 
 was honest and laborious. So much concerning myself — 
 perhaps too much, because very little that follows relates 
 to me. 
 
 Opposite to me, on the same landing, was one O. Smoothy. 
 For a long time I was only aware of his existence by the 
 name on the door, and as it was reported to me by a cer- 
 tain Mrs. Stride, the lady who did for us both (I use the 
 word "did" actively in so far as it has a meaning sig- 
 nifying to plunder or over-reach, and derisively so far as it 
 impHes the rendering of any duty or service), that he was 
 " a helderly gent," I came to regard the " O " as standing 
 for old, and to call him Old Smoothy, if you can be said to 
 call a person anything when you never speak to him or of 
 him, and merely go through a mental process in dubbing 
 him with any particular name. When I did later on see 
 him in the flesh, I confirmed the idea of " helderly " as 
 being accurate, because I was young, but in fact he was 
 only middle-aged, and I now consider middle age the prime 
 of life. I am middle-aged myself. 
 
 He was an extraordinarily quiet, solitary man. He slept 
 in the chambers that he tenanted, but he was never there 
 in the daytime. He would glide in at night and stay there, 
 and then disappear again in the morning after a very frugal 
 breakfast, and go I knew not whither. His rooms were 
 littered with papers, scattered on tables and chairs, and 
 there was even an overflow meeting on the floor, and the 
 papers were as dusty as if the chambers had been locked 
 up for years. I know this partly because, to my shame be 
 it said, I, in a moment of irrepressible curiosity, looked in 
 at the open door one day when the lady above alluded to 
 was making a bare-faced pretence of dusting the chambers,
 
 26o FORGIVEN GREATLY 
 
 and partly because she imparted to me, in a tone of some 
 mortification and personal injury, that Mr. Smoothy would 
 not allow a thing to be touched, and that the place was 
 like a blessed pigstye. I do not know why that of all 
 things should have annoyed her of all people, but it did. 
 
 It may be true that the name of woman is curiosity, but 
 I am disposed to think that even the far nobler and more 
 majestic animal man shares that one weakness with her. I 
 confess, at all events, that I very much wanted to know 
 Smoothy for no better reason than that he did not seem to 
 want to know me ; that the very fact of learning that he 
 would not have his papers touched lent to him a weird sort 
 of interest in my eyes ; and that his solitary life and long 
 absence during the day and late return at night suggested 
 to me all sorts of possible occupations of a mysterious kind. 
 I pictured him as the public executioner, as a sandwich 
 man, as a pavement artist, as a harmless lunatic evolved out 
 of a family Chancery suit, as a poet who had been vainly 
 trying all his life to get something published, and would not 
 allow Mrs. Stride to touch his manuscripts because he 
 thought they were sacred, though nobody else did. I even 
 thought of him as the conductor of an academy for young 
 gentlemen, such as Mr. Fagin used to carry on. I never 
 thought anything good of him, barring the poetic theory, 
 until I had met him face to face. 
 
 Some months elapsed before I even saw him, more before 
 we exchanged a word, but it was in the nature of things 
 that two men occupying chambers immediately facing each 
 other at the top of a narrow staircase, should run against 
 each other sooner or later. On the first occasion of our 
 doing so I caught sight of his coat tails a flight of stairs
 
 FORGIVEN GREATLY 261 
 
 above me, and on the next he followed me at a distance of 
 a few stairs behind me, and then I met him coming up the 
 stairs as I came down them. That happened two or three 
 times before we spoke, but I took in as a matter of interest 
 that he was a man with rather bent shoulders, and a thin, 
 ascetic, clean-shaved face. His dress was of an old- 
 fashioned kind, and looked as though it had done good 
 service, and yet it did not give the idea of either personal 
 neglect or poverty. He moved quickly and quietly, as 
 one who desired to avoid observation, and to be allowed 
 to go through the world alone, heeding no one himself, and 
 seeking not to attract the notice of any fellow-creatures ; 
 and when I fairly saw his face I felt ashamed of all my 
 unfavourable conjectures about his occupation, for if ever 
 there was a gentle soul, his eyes were windows that looked 
 out of one. 
 
 It was I who spoke first, and I ventured on the highly 
 original and stimulating remark, "Good evening," as we 
 passed each other on the stairs. He gave me a startled 
 look, and replying in exactly the same words, and a very 
 gentle, attractive voice, " Good evening," he passed on. 
 My next essay in conversation was like the advances made 
 in exercise-books — that is to say, I produced the original 
 "Good evening," and added, "cold, isn't it?" To this he 
 answered, " Good evening ; yes, it is cold." 
 
 These overtures did not carry matters very far, but I was 
 not daunted, for I really had a great desire now to know 
 Mr. Smoothy, and, in justice to myself, I must add a desire 
 in which the original motive of curiosity had given way to 
 a feeling prompted by the sight of his sad, wistful face and 
 wonderfully kind, expressive eyes. So I persevered, and
 
 262 FORGIVEN GREATLY 
 
 finally dropped a note through the slit in his outer door, in 
 which I said that as we were such very near neighbours I 
 would gladly improve the acquaintance if it would not be 
 disagreeable to him, and that perhaps one evening, when 
 he was at liberty, he would look me up, or allow me to come 
 and see him. 
 
 The reply was a visit paid to me the very next evening, 
 and the commencement of an acquaintance which was soon 
 greatly valued by me. I found Mr. Smoothy to be a highly 
 cultivated man, and though I was of a younger generation, 
 and no companion for him, he seemed in his own quiet 
 way to take to me, and to find pleasure in our occasional 
 evening chats in his chambers or mine. He was very 
 reticent as to his occupation, but I gathered soon that he 
 had been given to literary pursuits, though such few words 
 as gave me that information conveyed it only by inference, 
 and as if it were a closed chapter in his life, except that he 
 evidently had a fancy for keeping old manuscripts about 
 him. He was very shy at first, and never altogether lost 
 with me a timid, shrinking manner, though, in an odd sort 
 of way, we became really intimate friends, and, in the 
 cock-sure judgment of youth, I set him down as a nice, 
 harmless, scholarly, old fellow, and a true gentleman, but 
 of a very weak and irresolute disposition. The unerring 
 accuracy of my then profound knowledge of human nature, 
 as exemplified in the last item of my conclusions about 
 Mr. Smoothy, may or may not appear later. 
 
 Not very long after we had estabUshed those relations 
 I noticed a change in Mr. Smoothy. He stayed away to a 
 later hour in the evening than had been his habit, he ex- 
 cused himself several times from spending an hour with me
 
 FORGIVEN GREATLY 263 
 
 now and then, according to our custom, and when I did 
 see him he was obviously in mental abstraction and distress, 
 controlled with great difficulty even in my presence. His 
 face had grown many shades sadder, and in his eyes par- 
 ticularly was the look of a man in sore trouble. 
 
 He did not invite my confidence, and the disparity in 
 our ages, and the instinctive respect amounting almost to 
 reverence which I felt for him, forbade me to blunder into 
 forbidden ground. I only ventured to hint that he was 
 not looking well, in the hope of drawing some answer that 
 I might follow up without being indelicate; but while thank- 
 ing me in his usual gracious, timid manner, he declared that 
 there was nothing at all the matter with him, and then 
 turned the conversation gently aside. That there was 
 something preying very seriously on his mind was, however, 
 perfectly clear, and it worried me that I was so powerless 
 to help him in any way. 
 
 One morning, after this condition of affairs had lasted 
 a week or perhaps longer, Mrs. Stride was laying my break- 
 fast for me — the pi'he de resistance being a kippered herring, 
 which was not merely a kipper, but, if I may create the 
 superlative, a kippest, and odoriferous beyond words — when 
 she broke out with the remark that it was very odd it was, 
 and she hoped there was nothing wrong, as with all his 
 messy ways about his papers he was a quiet gent, and 
 always polite. 
 
 I asked what was odd, and who was the gent. 
 
 " Why, Mr. Smoothy to be sure. 'E aint been 'ome all 
 night, and I never knowed 'im stop away before without 
 sayin' so the day previous, and that, as I might say, 'as only 
 been once in a blue moon."
 
 264 FORGIVEN GREATLY 
 
 I told Mrs. Stride that no doubt Mr. Smoothy would 
 turn up all right, and was quite able to take care of himself, 
 and then attacked the kipper with what appetite I might, 
 and tried to think of something else. Something else was 
 named Mildred if I remember right, or it might have been 
 during the time of Alice. The queens of my heart reigned 
 for comparatively short periods, and I cannot now always 
 place them exactly in order of date. But not even the 
 attractions of the reigning beauty (they were all beautiful, 
 and every one of them ultimately married another) could 
 put out of my mind a sense of uneasiness about Mr. 
 Smoothy. I realised that I had grown very fond of him, 
 and should feel it acutely if any evil happened to him, 
 and I carried that feeling about all day. It chanced that 
 I had an evening engagement from which I came back too 
 late to learn whether he had returned. 
 
 I was still further disturbed in mind the next morning 
 when Mrs. Stride, while placing before me two boiled 
 eggs — oh ! such eggs, such Metropolitan, elderly, expe- 
 rienced, knowing eggs — told me with a face of real con- 
 cern that Mr. Smoothy was still absent, and she could not 
 make it out anyhow, and was really afraid something 
 had happened to him. Her alarm communicated itself to 
 me, and as I wrestled with the first egg (the second I left 
 for some one with a less sensitive stomach, and conjectured 
 that Mrs. Stride would come within the definition) I 
 thought of all manner of possible accidents that might 
 have happened to my friend, and even scanned the news- 
 paper with a vague idea that I might find in it an account 
 of some catastrophe in which he might be involved. With 
 a heavy heart I was just opening my outer door to go forth
 
 FORGIVEN GREATLY 265 
 
 to my labours when a lad reached my floor with a letter in 
 his hand. It was addressed to me, and on opening it 
 I found a brief note from Mr. Smoothy, with no address. 
 He merely said in it that a very urgent reason had kept 
 him away from his chambers and might prevent him from 
 returning for some days, and asked of me the favour to 
 put together for him a few necessaries of clothing — with 
 directions as to what was wanted, and where I should find 
 it, and in what it could be packed — and to hand the same 
 to the bearer, who would wait. Nothing more. 
 
 I did as I was asked, and then heard no more of Mr. 
 Smoothy for a week or so. I missed him greatly — more 
 than I could have believed possible — and was sitting in 
 my room one evening feeling quite disconsolate, when 
 a tap came at the door, which I at once recognised, and 
 I bounded up to let in Mr. Smoothy. He it was sure 
 enough, but altered almost beyond recognition, and wearing 
 deep mourning. I have never seen such a grief-stricken 
 face among the many that I have looked on since, and 
 my heart ached for him as he clasped my hand and sat 
 down wearily, oh ! so wearily, in his accustomed chair. 
 
 He said nothing for a little time, and I felt instinctively 
 that it would be better for him to speak first and in his 
 own time. 
 
 When he did find words they were at first so low and 
 broken, and choked with the emotion against which he 
 vainly struggled, that I could hardly catch what he said. 
 But he gathered strength and courage as he went on. He 
 spoke first in very kind and tender words of our having 
 become such good friends, and of my caring, as he put it, 
 to make a companion of a man so much older than
 
 266 FORGIVEN GREATLY 
 
 myself. And then he said that a great and irreparable trouble 
 had befallen him, and that alone as he was in the world, 
 he was moved for the relief of his own heart and by my 
 kindness to him always, to tell me of his trouble if it would 
 not be very selfish of him to inflict it upon me. I assured 
 him most truly, and with all the earnestness of which I was 
 capable, that I felt most deeply for him in a sorrow that 
 I could see only too well was heart-breaking, and that if he 
 gave me his confidence I would respect it faithfully, and 
 honour his friendship if possible more than ever. 
 
 He paused a little as if to collect his thoughts and 
 summon his courage, and then told me his story. When he 
 had finished it, and I had spoken the few halting words of 
 attempted comfort that came to my lips, and pressed both 
 his hands in mine as he left me, the dawn of a summer's 
 day was beginning to steal into my chambers. 
 
 And this was Mr. Smoothy's story. 
 
 He had married improvidently and hastily, when young, a 
 beautiful girl of greatly inferior rank in life to his own, to 
 whom he was tenderly attached. His precarious means of 
 supporting her had been derived from literary work of an 
 uncertain and not very lucrative kind, but she was at first 
 proud of being the wife of a real author ; he was, on his side, 
 full of ambition to become a successful writer for her sake. 
 Success did not, however, come as rapidly as he had hoped, 
 and the pinch of comparative poverty, and the inability of a 
 shallow, uneducated mind to understand and appreciate 
 either him or his constant toil, that seemed to produce so 
 little return in money, began before very long to make the 
 wife embittered, and the husband for that reason disap- 
 pointed. She wanted fine dresses, holidays, amusements,
 
 FORGIVEN GREATLY 267 
 
 pleasures, and hard as he worked he could not give them to 
 her. Children might perhaps have helped matters, but 
 their only child died in infancy. Then, while she was still 
 in the pride of her beauty, and all the illusions of a marriage 
 in which she had found no lasting happiness had vanished, 
 there came along a rich young man who became acquainted 
 by chance with Mr. Smoothy, because the rich man dabbled 
 in that which was the stern occupation of the poor man, 
 and pretended to write poetry, and to be highly intellectual. 
 Mr. Smoothy did not take very kindly to him, and, indeed, 
 there was nothing in common between them to create a real 
 friendship, but somehow the acquaintance spread sufficiently 
 far to take in Smoothy's unhappy wife. And then after a 
 time his house was left unto him desolate, and the wife who 
 had not gained what she had expected and married for, and 
 probably had never even at first had any real affection for 
 her husband, eloped with the rich trifler in literature, to seek 
 in the jingling of his money and the protestations of his un- 
 lawful admiration and love — but not to find, poor fool, nor 
 any other poor fool in this world like unto her — the happi- 
 ness that she had never patiently tried to win in the common 
 round of a pure domestic life. 
 
 The blow had fallen heavily on the deserted husband, for 
 though he had seen only too plainly that his wife was not 
 all that he had pictured to himself, and that she fretted 
 sorely against the restrictions of a slender income, he had 
 buoyed himself up with the hope of winning success that 
 would bring money, and with it the means of making his 
 wife contented and happy, and he still cared for her, though 
 his eyes had been opened to her faults. 
 
 He pursued his labours because he lived by them, but all
 
 268 FORGIVEN GREATLY 
 
 ambition had gone, and he was content to become a literary 
 hack, and to earn a small income just sufficient to support 
 him in tlie lonely and retired existence that he deliberately 
 chose for himself, until he succeeded to a moderate com- 
 petence that came to him quite unexpectedly from a distant 
 relative, and then he gave up writing, except now and again 
 in a fitful way, for it was no longer necessary, and he had 
 lost all zest for it. 
 
 He had taken no steps to obtain a divorce. He would 
 have done so if it would have paved the way for his wife to 
 marry her betrayer and lead a reputable life, but not many 
 months — not even many weeks — after she had left him he 
 received an incoherent letter from her with no address. I 
 gathered that it was an odd jumble of implied rather than 
 expressed regret for her conduct to him, hatred for the false 
 lover who had enticed her away with golden promises, and 
 flung her aside when tired of her shallow attractions, and 
 defiant recklessness as to the future. .She asked nothing of 
 him, not even his forgiveness, bade him to forget her, and 
 declared that whatever might happen he might be sure that 
 he would never be troubled by her. 
 
 On receiving this letter he had taken such limited steps 
 as lay in his power to trace his unhappy wife, with a half- 
 formed desire to do something — he knew not what or how — 
 to save her from degradation and want. But he failed 
 to discover the least trace of her, and many years elapsed 
 before their paths crossed again. 
 
 And then a meeting did come to pass. He had con- 
 tracted the habit, common to men who lead a solitary life, 
 of wandering about the streets in all sorts of places and at 
 all sorts of times, and it happened that he was making his
 
 FORGIVEN GREATLY 269 
 
 way late one evening along an East End London street, 
 when his attention was arrested by the piercing scream of a 
 woman at some distance ahead and the instant gathering 
 together of a crowd. He had no morbid curiosity to learn 
 what exact form of brutality had caused the excitement, but 
 in the flash of a moment the cry went round, "Woman 
 stabbed," and an instinct that he might possibly render help 
 came upon him, and caused him to move towards the group, 
 to which at the same time a poHceman was making his way. 
 The crowd gave way to the policeman, but were not disposed 
 to admit any one else to a front place at what they appeared 
 to regard as a gruesome kind of entertainment provided for 
 their benefit, and Mr. Smoothy found himself, not un- 
 wilUngly, shut out. He was about to walk away when 
 another policeman came and ploughed his way towards his 
 comrade, and a moment afterwards one of them made a 
 lane unceremoniously through the crowd, having in charge 
 a dark-visaged, ruffianly-looking scoundrel, who might have 
 given a good deal of trouble if the bystanders had had any 
 sympathy for him and had been inclined to aid his escape. 
 But English people do not love the use of knives, and the 
 brute seemed instinctively to feel that the policeman was 
 rather a protection to his life and limbs than otherwise, 
 owing to the threatening attitude of the people round him. 
 
 This incident split up the crowd into two sections, one 
 pursuing the progress of the prisoner to the police station, 
 and the other remaining with the victim of the savage 
 assault, to whom the other policeman was attending as 
 well as circumstances permitted. The circumstances 
 included, as in all such cases, a determination on the 
 part of the public to get as near a vie\ of the sufferer as
 
 270 FORGIVEN GREATLY 
 
 possible, and to exclude from her every possibility of breathing 
 air instead of being nearly suffocated by a crowd, moved, 
 no doubt to a certain extent by sympathy, but also, I fear, 
 influenced by that love of the morbid which infects the 
 lower classes, and causes them to revel in reading the 
 minutest details of an execution, and to regard with the 
 highest favour entertainments which involve a risk of life to 
 the performer. 
 
 A stretcher had been sent for, but meanwhile the un- 
 happy sufferer was evidently in a bad way, and the humane 
 policeman was vainly trying to get the people to stand 
 farther back, while he supported the poor woman as well 
 as he could. And then Mr. Smoothy was impelled to make 
 his way into the centre of the crowd — he told me that he 
 did this just as he had before lingered in a scene that was 
 revolting to him, in obedience to an impulse to render such 
 help to the policeman as he might, with some slight know- 
 ledge of the right thing to do in such a case before skilled 
 aid could be summoned. He said something which in- 
 clined the people to appreciate his motive and make way 
 for him, and, to his horror, found himself a moment after- 
 wards kneeling on the pavement beside the prostrate body 
 of his own wife. 
 
 She had fainted from loss of blood, and one glance was 
 enough to tell him that she had been very severely hurt, 
 and to realise also what had been her manner of life during 
 the fifteen years that had passed since he had seen her last. 
 As he assisted the policeman in such little offices of mercy 
 as were possible, he debated within himself the terrible 
 problem as to what he ought to do, and determined that he 
 would not, at all events there and then, disclose the fact
 
 FORGIVEN GREATLY 271 
 
 that she was his wife. He knew that she would be well 
 cared for in her extremity, and he felt that it would be 
 wiser for the present, at all events, to play only the part of 
 a humane stranger. It may be also that, unconsciously to 
 himself, he shrank from acknowledging the existence of 
 such a tie between himself and the woman who had sunk 
 so very, very low since last he had looked upon her face, 
 and if so, who shall cast a stone at him for that ? 
 
 After a delay that seemed to him interminable a stretcher 
 arrived, and the woman — his wife, as he kept saying to him- 
 self — was gently placed on it and taken off. He heard the 
 policeman utter some words of thanks to him for his help, 
 and mention the name of the hospital to which he was 
 taking her, and then he found himself following also, until 
 the hospital was reached, and the poor, unconscious burden 
 disappeared from view. He walked away in a dazed con- 
 dition, and then, and for many weeks afterwards, felt as if 
 he were passing through a hideous dream. 
 
 But it was no dream. No dream that he had found his 
 wife after many days. No dream that she had sunk lower 
 and lower, steadily and surely, since first she had put her 
 foot upon the downward slope. No dream that the motive 
 of the crime of which she had been the victim was jealousy, 
 created by unfaithfulness, according even to the code of the 
 man with whom last she had thrown in her lot No dream 
 that her life was hanging in the balance for long, but was 
 saved, though only as a shattered wreck, by skill and de- 
 voted care. No dream that a horrible trial took place, at 
 which the crime and all its degraded surrounding circum- 
 stances were laid bare, as with a surgeon's knife, and a long 
 term of penal servitude meted out to the miscreant, which
 
 272 FORGIVEN GREATLY 
 
 would have been longer still but for the previous conduct 
 to him of the woman he had stabbed — and that woman 
 Smoothy's own wife. 
 
 No, these were no dreams, but cruel waking realities that 
 nothing could dissolve into air, and before him lay the 
 future of this woman, and wrapped up with it, as he felt, 
 his own. 
 
 Without betraying his identity he made daily inquiries 
 as to her progress at the hospital, and when at length her 
 life was out of danger, he found means to provide anony- 
 mously, and as a temporary measure, a decent abiding- 
 place and other necessaries for her, with the friendly and 
 delicate help of one of the surgeons, who knew nothing and 
 asked nothing of Mr. Smoothy's reasons for solicitude on 
 her account, whatever he may have conjectured, and who 
 told him that she might live for many years (how often he 
 repeated to himself "many years," as he paced the streets 
 or sat in his lonely chambers, with a stunned feeling of blank 
 despair as to the future), but that she could never again be 
 otherwise than a chronic, and practically bed-ridden, invalid, 
 owing to special mischief caused by the would-be assassin's 
 knife. 
 
 Much as he doubted what course to take, it never entered 
 his contemplation to leave her to want. Had she recovered 
 full health and strength, he felt that he would have tried to 
 save her from perdition. As it was, the problem took a 
 different but not less difficult form, for it was impossible to 
 say what manner of human being in thought and feeling 
 she would become after this great shock, when she came 
 gradually to realise the altered conditions of her life. The 
 friendly surgeon had told him for his comfort that there
 
 FORGIVEN GREATLY 273 
 
 was one great saving clause— the indications all pointed to 
 her not having been addicted to drink, and he hinted 
 gently that this and her comparatively helpless physical 
 condition made reformation of her life much more hopeful, 
 though he did not conceal that she seemed at present to 
 have no sense of shame or remorse, and was an ungrateful 
 and difficult patient. She had shown no interest in any- 
 thing but the trial of the man who had nearly murdered 
 her, and no satisfaction about anything except the punish- 
 ment meted out to him, and even that did not gratify her 
 spirit of revenge, as she said it ought to have been twice as 
 long. 
 
 What ought he to do ? Should he remain always in the 
 background as an unknown benefactor, or reveal himself 
 to her? There were many and great reasons for the 
 former course ; indeed, from his own selfish point of view 
 every reason. But his great and generous heart told him 
 that his personal influence might help to raise this poor 
 fallen wretch from the mire in which she had sunk until it had 
 all but closed over her, and he felt in his inmost soul that 
 a greater, far greater sacrifice was called for than any mere 
 provision for her bodily wants made by him from afar off. 
 If he would even try to bring back to repentance and then 
 to peace this woman who had once been his wife, and had 
 betrayed and disgraced him, and then fallen to the lowest 
 depths of shameless guilt, he must dedicate his whole life 
 to her. 
 
 And that was what Smoothy decided to do, and he told 
 me that when he had once brought his courage to that point 
 he seemed, as it were, to have won a big fight with himself, 
 and never looked back with regret once afterwards.
 
 274 FORGIVEN GREATLY 
 
 He took the surgeon into his confidence, and obtained 
 his advice as to the best way of providing permanently in a 
 modest way for his wife's needs in her condition of health ; 
 and then when she had been settled in the quarters he had 
 provided for her, and an attendant had been installed, he 
 went to see her. 
 
 He did not tell me much about that interview, the 
 memory of which was evidently very painful to him even 
 at the distance of time from which he was speaking. I 
 gathered that the woman had shrunk from him one moment, 
 defied him the next, accused him of coming there to revile 
 her ; sworn that she would not have his charity, and would 
 not have had it at all if she had known it was his ; cursed 
 her own fate, and declared she would get well in spite of 
 all the doctor said, and then go her own way and have no 
 spies about her, and if she chose to do so, die in a ditch. 
 Her language was garnished with oaths of the foulest kind, 
 and Smoothy was for the moment sorely shaken even as to 
 the wisdom of his resolution. But behind all the flaunting, 
 coarse brutality of her bearing and language, all the hard- 
 ness of heart, and all the vile habits of thought that had 
 grown with her life until they had become part of herself, 
 something whispered to him that there was just a faint 
 glimmering of shame, evinced by the very vehemence of 
 her language and her fierce desire to reject his help of 
 all help in the world, and when he left her he felt terribly 
 cast down, but not in utter despair. Her last words were 
 almost a shout, bidding him to go and return no more, and 
 a defiant repetition of her intention to get well and be 
 off where no one could follow her. 
 
 He left her alone advisedly for a few days, and then he
 
 FORGIVEN GREATLY 275 
 
 went again. The meeting was nearly as painful and of 
 much the same kind, but he was conscious again, and in a 
 more marked degree, that a feeling of shame was trying to 
 pierce through the tangled heap of evil thoughts that 
 possessed her shallow and brutalised brain, and that her 
 repeated assertions that she would soon get well, and, as 
 she called it, give him the slip, did not sound as if there 
 were real conviction behind them. 
 
 Again at a still longer interval he went, and that time 
 it seemed to him that the poor creature revealed, all against 
 her will and in spite of many defiant assertions volunteered 
 to the contrary, a dim consciousness on her part of having 
 been lonely, and of having even looked forward to his 
 coming. 
 
 And then again and again he went, until the first great 
 step was won, and she was undisguisedly glad to see him. 
 His face brightened as he told me of this triumph ; he did 
 not also tell me how it had been brought about, and never 
 referred to his own part in those terrible interviews between 
 man and wife with such a tremendous gulf between 
 them. But, as I looked at his face, I had no difficulty 
 in picturing for myself the infinite patience and restraint 
 that had broken down such a barrier and conquered such 
 a nature. 
 
 There were many hills still to climb, he said, and it took 
 a long time to mount them. From defiance to shame, from 
 shame to gratitude, from gratitude to repentance, from re- 
 pentance to peace and contentment with the daily life of an 
 invalid. And beyond these, always in evidence, and always 
 to be reckoned with, the limitations of an uneducated and 
 very narrow mind, to which his cultivated intellect had to
 
 276 FORGIVEN GREATLY 
 
 stoop in reading to her, in talking to her, in laying out his 
 own life so as to bring such gleams of happiness as were 
 possible into hers, with its dreadful past behind her and its 
 bed-ridden prospect before her. But he never flinched or 
 failed, and the time came before very long when his daily visit 
 brought to the poor soul a light that was to her as if an 
 angel shed it upon her, and his reward was the knowledge 
 that it was so. He found, too, that her method of expres- 
 sion, her thoughts, her whole nature gradually became re- 
 fined and softened, until at length what had been to him a 
 duty of infinite trial and difificulty, insensibly filled up his 
 life with the purest and truest happiness. It was as though 
 in spirit husband and wife were united for the first time, 
 and not even in the fleeting days of early life, when he had 
 been first led away by her beauty into the fatal mistake of 
 a most ill-assorted marriage, was she one-hundredth part as 
 dear to him as now, when, with sins upon her as red as 
 scarlet, helpless, and with no vestige or shadow of personal 
 beauty remaining, she lay upon a bed of suffering, never to 
 be raised from it until the end should come that was very 
 gradually but very surely closing in upon her. 
 
 For more than ten years had Smoothy devoted himself 
 to the sacred task, and then the summons came that 
 finished it. 
 
 She had always suffered much from the original cause, 
 and although she had borne her sufferings heroically for 
 his sake, and no word of complaint ever escaped her in 
 his presence, he had seen for himself that her strength was 
 visibly declining, and the doctor privately told him that 
 a fresh complication had arisen to bafiie him. His recent 
 absence was due to his constant and devoted care for her
 
 FORGIVEN GREATLY 277 
 
 during the last few days of her life. And now all the 
 sufferings were over, and the poor bruised and broken 
 spirit was at rest. She had died in his arms — restored 
 to them again at that supreme hour — in love purified and 
 made holy by the fire of suffering and repentance, and 
 filled with the peace that passeth all understanding ; and 
 in her last conscious moment she had breathed his name 
 with a blessing on her lips and a look in her poor wasted 
 face that seemed to him to have come straight from Heaven 
 to tell him that angels, whose names were Love and Mercy, 
 were waiting to receive her at the gates. 
 
 It soon became evident to me that the withdrawal from 
 his daily life of the absorbing interest to which he had 
 given up his time and his thoughts, and in the later days 
 also his deep affection, was an irreparable loss to Smoothy. 
 He seemed to shrink into the appearance of old age by 
 degrees that were almost daily perceptible. There was 
 the same patient, quiet, uncomplaining face, but the light 
 had gone out of it. He moved about as a man without 
 purpose, and that is what he really had become. I am 
 glad, looking back, to believe that when I made use of 
 little artifices to get him to come into my room, and then 
 led him to open his heart to me by talking of the one 
 subject that had so filled his whole being, he was more 
 nearly happy than at any other time ; but all my efforts 
 to tempt him to take up literary work again as an 
 occupation were in vain. 
 
 Grief proverbially does not kill, but when the whole aim 
 and object of a man's life, to which he has given every- 
 thing and sacrificed everything, and in which he has been
 
 2/8 FORGIVEN GREATLY 
 
 absolutely wrapped up are suddenly swept away, and when 
 this happens comparatively late in life, after the pulses that 
 quicken ambition, hope, and eager expectation of what lies 
 in front of him have ceased to beat, it is not very rare for 
 that man's life just to fade away as a thing that is done 
 with. So at least it was with my dear friend Smoothy, and 
 the grave had not closed over his dead wife for more than 
 a year when he followed her, and by his own express wish, 
 which it was my privilege as his executor to carry out, he 
 was laid beside her. Their friendship at the last had been 
 beautiful, and in death they were not long divided.
 
 ( 279 ) 
 
 CONCERNING JUDGES 
 
 To make the dry bones of law reports live would seem at 
 first blush a miracle of no ordinary merit, and yet they 
 have a strange human interest to those who pause now 
 and again upon the dusty road of professional life and sit 
 down to moralise, always provided that they have reached 
 that stage of the journey at which they look rather back 
 upon the distance already covered than forward to the 
 uncertain and seldom inviting prospect stretching out 
 before them. And who does not moralise sometimes and 
 find a melancholy pleasure in doing so ? It costs nothing. 
 It gives a sort of rest or pause in the turmoil of business 
 life, with all its worry and anxiety, its perpetual contact with 
 and (if we must own up at times even on week-days) volun- 
 tary contributions to the demons of envy, hatred, malice, 
 and all uncharitableness, to say nothing of petty jealousies, 
 sordid meanness, and a few other minor imps. I know 
 that whenever a man utters a sentiment not absolutely 
 limited to the grovelling affairs of daily life, and that has in 
 it the least tinge of deeper reflection, it is assumed as a 
 matter of course that his liver is out of order and that he is 
 in need of a purgative. But whether my liver is responsible 
 for the line of thought that I am tempted to pursue in this 
 paper or not is perfectly immaterial to me, and, if possible,
 
 28o CONCERNING JUDGES 
 
 more immaterial to the reader. I am thus tempted, and I 
 mean to fall, and that is all about it. 
 
 I do not seek, now at all events, to evolve anything out 
 of the words of wisdom reported in print which generally 
 send away one of two suitors happy and an enthusiastic 
 admirer of justice " as she is spoke," and the other miser- 
 able and convinced (not without reason at times) that the 
 law is an ass, and not even a consistent ass. I do not 
 even turn my thoughts to the reporters, though whether 
 they be young barristers eagerly looking in front of them, 
 or elderly barristers sadly or philosophically looking behind 
 them, they are by no means without interest for the student 
 of human nature. I am thinking of the judges whose 
 names appear in the reports. 
 
 The impression that a solicitor's principal function in life 
 is to wait obsequiously upon judges and counsel in Court 
 and to tip ushers does not hold, I think, among enlightened 
 people either inside or outside of the legal profession, 
 though I have in my time known even judges to whom 
 it has appeared to be an article of religion. I have in a 
 paper that will be found later in this immortal volume 
 unfolded the miseries of attendance in Court, and there 
 are, I think, at least some who realise that to a solicitor 
 of mature age the necessity for ever putting in an appear- 
 ance in Court is regarded as an intolerable nuisance and 
 a dead loss, and that it recoils upon his family circle in the 
 shape of a display of unmerited irritation shortly before, 
 and during, and for some time after the event. But I sup- 
 pose, nevertheless, that to most of us in either branch of 
 the profession a reverie will bring back more vividly than 
 anything a ghostly procession of judges who have been
 
 CONCERNING JUDGES 281 
 
 seen and known by us, whose wisdom and learning 
 have been admired, or whose foibles have been, not always 
 kindly, ridiculed or abused, and who are now beyond the 
 reach of the criticism that beats pretty fiercely upon the 
 bench which they once occupied. 
 
 When I was a very small child and was first taken to 
 church, I thought the clergyman was an angel because he 
 was dressed in white ; and when I first went to a circus I 
 thought the lady who appeared on horseback in muslin and 
 scanty accessories was a real fairy. When again I was a 
 very young articled clerk and went into Court for the first 
 time, I thought that the judge to whose utterances I 
 listened was a lineal successor to Solomon, because he had 
 a deep, rich voice and solemn manner. He did, as a matter 
 of fact, talk terribly bad law at times and foolishness 
 beyond price, but I appreciated the voice then, and did not 
 detect the bad law or the foolishness. All these opinions 
 have been modified, but still, even in these latter days, I have 
 known clergymen not very far short of being angels, and have 
 seen circus ladies who might very well pass in a crowd for 
 fairies, and judges for whose wisdom, patience, and courtesy 
 (and of these three things courtesy is by no means the least, 
 and seems the judicial virtue most difficult to practise) I 
 have had the most profound respect and admiration. 
 
 The spirit of the laudator temporis acti is always with us, 
 and always will be, and he takes up a position with an 
 invisible brush in hand and tars us with it just at the spot 
 at which we pass the meridian of life and begin to descend 
 the hill that leads down to the valley of silence and rest, 
 from which no man has ever yet emerged except those 
 raised from the dead. Until then we may have had the
 
 282 CONCERNING JUDGES 
 
 impression that the world has been moving on, that men 
 and women are rather better than they used to be, that it is 
 an age of advancement and progress even in the adminis- 
 tration of justice, that the judges of to-day will bear com- 
 parison with any that have ever adorned the bench in times 
 past. But when we get to that point on the road to which 
 I have just alluded, we begin to recall Lord Chief-Justice 
 A. and Lord Justice B. and Baron C, whom we remember 
 in our youth, and as we turn over a law report we light 
 on some well-remembered name of a judge who has long 
 since gone to the land of Shadows, and we say to ourselves, 
 " What a great judge he was, and how well I remember 
 trembling before him in stage-fright the first time I ever 
 went before a judge in chambers, and how kindly he helped 
 me, and what a splendid judgment he delivered in that case 
 of Stiggle and Timpkins — which, by-the-bye, we won hands 
 down. Fancy comparing him to any of the judges of 
 to-day." We pay no heed to the trifling circumstance that 
 we were thirty years younger when we formed our opinion 
 of the late lamented judge, and were, so to speak, always 
 following in his wake, whereas we hardly know by sight the 
 judges of the present time, or at most only identify them 
 with counsel whom we used to employ as juniors when 
 we were very young, and when we thought we knew every- 
 thing ourselves, and at all events more than they did. 
 
 It is a truism that to establish a comparison like must be 
 compared with like, but apart from the objects compared 
 (I hope it is not contempt of court to call judges objects 
 if meant without offence) the comparison must be made 
 under equal conditions by the person who affects to com- 
 pare them. A lawyer who has, let us say, been in the pro-
 
 CONCERNING JUDGES 283 
 
 fession five-and-thirty years will be heard to assess the 
 merits of some judge of to-day against those of another 
 judge who departed this life when the critic was himself 
 about twenty-one years of age, very much of course to the 
 disadvantage of the former. He is talking sheer nonsense, 
 and might as well say that I must evidently have lost all 
 sense of enjoyment (I have nearly, but that does not touch 
 the point) because he no longer sees me wheeling a hoop, 
 and he distinctly remembers my fondness for that pastime 
 when I was seven. The truth lies, as it often does, about 
 half-way between the two extremes. The very young 
 lawyer clothes the judges of his day with exaggerated 
 virtues ; the old lawyer is given to stripping them of any 
 virtues at all, and unconsciously casts a glamour over the 
 judges of his youth. There have been good and in- 
 different judges in all times, and I fancy that the average 
 has always been about the same, at all events since the far- 
 off days when judges used to be expected to decide par- 
 ticular cases according to the wish of some great person 
 who was, metaphorically speaking, sticking pins into them 
 from behind, and had given them to understand that it 
 would be the worse for them if they did not do his bidding. 
 But if it be the case that the judges of old and the 
 judges of to-day are much of a muchness in judicial virtue 
 and merit when weighed evenly in the balances, and with 
 a due allowance for the differences of the prevailing con- 
 ditions of the time in which they have lived, it cannot 
 be denied that there is a halo of sentiment round the 
 judges who flourished in our youth that we cannot extend 
 to those who are in years our contemporaries or juniors. 
 The halo comes too late to afford much satisfaction to
 
 284 CONCERNING JUDGES 
 
 those who are gone, but if it is any satisfaction to the 
 present generation of judges, they may rest assured that 
 many years hence, after they have dehvered their own 
 last judgments, and are waiting to hear the last judgment 
 ever to be delivered, the young lawyer of to-day, grown 
 grey by then in the service of his profession, will pronounce 
 a highly favourable opinion upon their merits, and declare 
 them to be incomparably superior to their successors. 
 Thus all things right themselves sooner or later, but with 
 a tendency to do so later, and sometimes too late for our 
 personal gratification. I confess that I cannot thrill with 
 excitement over the prospect, however certain it may be, 
 of a statue being erected to my memory, or of my funeral 
 being attended by a deputation from my old convivial 
 friends, the Jolly Buffaloes, even if they be headed by 
 a cornet (which I fully agree to be a funereal instrument) 
 playing "The Lost Chord" in fitful gusts. 
 
 So let me have my sentimental regrets as I turn over 
 law reports and light upon judicial names that were house- 
 hold words to me in days long gone by. Let me recall 
 what a giant this judge was, what delicate wit illumined 
 the judgments of another, what patience and conscientious 
 longing to hold the scales of justice evenly distinguished 
 another, how rough in manner and yet how kind in heart 
 was another. Let me recall how constantly I used to have 
 to be in attendance at some particular Chancery Court 
 before some particular judge, and pause to remember that 
 the Court has vanished as well as the judge, never to be 
 seen again. Let me look at a print hanging on my wall 
 with medallion portraits of all the judges of the time at 
 which it was published, and whose faces were all familiar
 
 CONCERNING JUDGES 285 
 
 to me, and shake my head as I tell myself that not one 
 of them — not one — is alive to-day. And if all this does 
 not make me sad enough, let me look back to the days 
 when I was young, hopeful, ambitious, looking always 
 forward eagerly to successes that I was striving to win, 
 and to abundant happiness that I was certain I should 
 possess, and let me find in that retrospect good and 
 sufficient reason for closing this paper, with a sigh as 
 deep as the well in which most of those hopes and ex- 
 pectations are lying alongside truth.
 
 ANY READER 
 
 WHO IS 
 NOT DEEPLY INTERESTED 
 
 IN 
 
 THE SORROWS OF SOLICITORS AS A CLASS 
 AND 
 
 THE SACRED CAUSE OF LAW REFORM, 
 
 OR AT LEAST 
 
 ONE OF THOSE SUBJECTS, 
 
 IS RESPECTFULLY REQUESTED 
 
 TO 
 
 KEEP OFF THE REMAINING GRASS, 
 
 OR, IN OTHER WORDS, 
 
 STOP HERE.
 
 ( 287 ) 
 
 ATTENDING COURT 
 
 There may be some benighted beings who, judging from 
 totally mistaken premises, such as a resigned countenance, 
 or a protruding waistcoat indicating to the thoughtless a 
 jolly existence, most rashly conclude that the life of a 
 solicitor is a happy one. 
 
 A more preposterous idea was never conceived. The 
 path of a solicitor is positively strewed with sharp-pointed 
 stones, and fenced in with barbed wire; he receives pin- 
 pricks enough to tattoo him ; he is insulted on every oppor- 
 tunity ; ridiculed at every turn on and off the stage ; held 
 responsible by clients for the folly of legislators, the perver- 
 sity and prejudices of juries, and the occasional lapses of 
 judges ; he has, of late years, generally been assumed to 
 be on the verge of fraudulent bankruptcy in a large or 
 small way, according to the extent of his practice. I really 
 do not know what form of revenge is open to him, except 
 to abstract the money of his clients and depart in a false 
 beard to more congenial climes, and even that form of rough 
 justice has been weakened by bothering extradition treaties. 
 
 I cannot hope in the compass of this paper to unfold all 
 the woes of a legal practitioner, and I therefore concentrate 
 attention upon a single one of them calculated to crush the 
 bravest spirit, and I select the process of refined torture 
 known by the name of attending Court.
 
 288 ATTENDING COURT 
 
 Most of us are familiar with the spectacle of a per.^piring, 
 swearing, mud-stained man with a long stick endeavouring 
 to persuade a drove of cattle to proceed over, let us say, 
 Blackfriars Bridge while vehicles of all sorts throw them 
 into wild confusion and terror, and afford them an excuse 
 for going anywhere except in the right direction. That is a 
 simile which gives a faint idea of what it means to collect 
 and keep witnesses together in Court for a trial. The 
 eminent expert witness is perpetually wanting to go off 
 and tell untruths somewhere else at fifty guineas apiece. 
 The witness of fact, if in a humble class of life, and 
 especially if accustomed to go down to the sea in ships 
 and have his business in great rum and waters, gravitates 
 to refreshment bars. The silly witness loses himself when- 
 ever he ventures to move a yard out of Court. The restless 
 witness wanders away into other Courts to hear what is 
 going on, but, mercifully, may generally be run to earth in 
 the Divorce Court. The ofificious witness occupies himself 
 in thinking of new and totally irrelevant points, and either 
 inscribes them on crumpled pieces of paper and passes 
 them with an air of profound mystery to the solicitor, who 
 has to pretend to read them and be deeply impressed, or 
 else progs a stick or umbrella into the solicitor's back, and 
 rests not until the latter struggles out of his seat and has 
 the inane drivel poured into his ear in a hoarse and at 
 times tobaccoey or oniony whisper. The inquisitive wit- 
 ness wants to know the name of the judge and the counsel 
 in the case, and of that gentleman in a wig and gown that 
 sits just below the judge, and what he is doing there — a 
 terrible poser that last question. 
 
 The combative witness cannot hear any witness on the
 
 ATTENDING COURT 289 
 
 other side give evidence without getting up excitedly and 
 
 upsetting everybody and everything in his way to come and 
 
 tell the solicitor, with a purple face and utterance choked 
 
 with rage, that Jones is telling lies (with a prefix to the 
 
 word lies), and it's awful to hear him, and that something 
 
 ought to be done to stop it. 
 
 All the time this process is going on the solicitor has to 
 
 attend simultaneously to the requirements of the Court and 
 
 counsel, which are also harassing. He hands a document 
 
 to his leading counsel at the imperious request of the latter, 
 
 who already has had and lost two copies of it. The leading 
 
 counsel immediately contrives to drop it under his seat, or 
 
 fold it inside some other paper in his brief, or conceal it 
 
 among the papers of the counsel sitting next to him. A 
 
 minute or two afterwards it is required in evidence, and is 
 
 not forthcoming. The judge looks impatiently at counsel, 
 
 counsel assumes a pained air, as who should say : " My 
 
 Lord, I am really very sorry the Court is kept waiting, but 
 
 my fool of a client has mislaid the document, and it is not 
 
 my fault," and he generally does say words to that effect. 
 
 The judge, in an impersonal way, looking over the head of 
 
 the solicitor as if he were dust and speaking to counsel, 
 
 improves the occasion by remarking that if solicitors would 
 
 only take the trouble to have documents in readiness that 
 
 are certain to be wanted, valuable public time would not be 
 
 lost, and there would be nothing more heard of the law's 
 
 delays and arrears of cases waiting for trial; and that at 
 
 the last meeting of the Rule Committee of the judges he 
 
 suggested a rule for dealing with such flagrant scandals, and 
 
 only regrets that it was not carried owing to nobody voting 
 
 for it, and that if the document is not found in three minutes, 
 
 T
 
 290 ATTENDING COURT 
 
 lie shall know what to do about the costs of the action. The 
 client, naturally misled Ijy the brazen innocence of counsel, 
 the solemn air with which words of apparent wisdom are 
 being uttered from the Bench, and the fact that his solicitor 
 does not present the appearance of a king of men while 
 frantically searching for the missing paper, with a murderous 
 expression of countenance and in a tumult of suppressed 
 rage, feels that he has indeed made a bad choice of a legal 
 adviser, and must change his solicitor after this case is over. 
 Then, just as a crisis is coming, and the judge in a tone of 
 crushing severity asks the ceiling how much longer the 
 Court and jury are to be kept waiting (though he does not 
 really care about the jury) the cup is found in Benjamin's 
 sack — meaning the leading counsel's own papers — who im- 
 mediately says, with a courage worthy of a better cause, 
 that it must have been put there by his client without his 
 noticing it, apologises to the Court for his client's careless- 
 ness, and the case proceeds. 
 
 The solicitor's shirt has gradually crept up his back in a 
 compact roll from the working of his skin during the agony 
 of this incident, his feelings are lacerated, he wants to say a 
 bad word, but he can only mutter it to himself in a 
 thoroughly unsatisfying and inconclusive manner; and 
 while he is trying hard to recover his composure down 
 comes the inquisitive witness upon him with a long scribble 
 horribly written in faint pencil, conveying a preposterously 
 silly suggestion upon a point that has no conceivable bear- 
 ing upon any possible aspect of the case. 
 
 The relations of the solicitor to his leading counsel on 
 these occasions are in other respects trying. I do not refer 
 to the learned gentleman who has just taken silk, and not
 
 ATTENDING COURT 291 
 
 having yet won his spurs as a leader cannot dig the rowels 
 of them into the soHcitor's flank. I have in my eye the 
 type of successful king's counsel, who is one of the great 
 advocates of the day. His attitude to the solicitor who 
 briefs him generally ranges from good-humoured contempt 
 to biting irritation. He is apt to regard an unfavourable 
 answer from a friendly witness as a personal offence on the 
 part of the solicitor, and to ask that crushed worm what he 
 means by it. He complains aloud because in the course 
 of the trial some fact comes out of which he declares he 
 was never told, though it is prominently stated on the first 
 page of his brief. Any expectation of more than a passing 
 glimpse of his bodily presence is, like faith, the evidence 
 of things not seen, for he is usually opening another case 
 in King's Bench, Court 7, just as the solicitor, whose 
 miseries I am describing, is stranded in the most critical 
 stage of his case in King's Bench, Court 4, and sending 
 up signals of distress like rockets from a sinking ship. His 
 place on such occasions is taken by his clerk, who comes 
 in and watches the case sympathetically, but without any 
 obviously substantial advantage, and generally selects such 
 moments as a fitting opportunity for mentioning confiden- 
 tially that the other side have given Mr. Snooks, K.C., 
 one hundred and fifty guineas on his brief, and he feels 
 sure that he has only to tell you this in order to secure the 
 immediate raising of your own leader's fee from one 
 hundred guineas to the same figure. 
 
 Without being an epicure or glutton a man may be 
 excused for wanting a little food in the middle of the day. 
 At about 1.30 the judge experiences that need and rises. 
 The leading counsel share it, and go off to their well-earned
 
 292 ATTENDING COURT 
 
 repast. Not so the wretched sohcitor. His client and 
 witnesses come buzzing round to talk to him : they expect 
 to be looked after like children, to know how long they 
 may be away (they are always longer than the time men- 
 tioned), and where they can go for their confounded lunch ; 
 and how long the case is likely to last, and why on earth 
 Mr. Fubsy, K.C., did not make that point which the person 
 who is talking to you suggested himself, and therefore 
 regards as the turning point of the whole case, though it is 
 of no importance whatever, and whether you noticed that 
 the judge's face showed plainly that he did not believe a 
 word of Mififin's evidence on the other side. You are told 
 as a tremendous secret that as the jury went out one of 
 your witnesses heard a juryman say to another juryman 
 that it was a rum case, and are asked whether you don't 
 regard that as an infallible indication that your client, the 
 defendant, must win. When you have waded through this 
 sea of fatuous obstruction in the way of much-needed 
 refreshment, you suddenly remember that your counsel 
 asked you to look up yesterday's shorthand notes and find 
 for him a certain passage in which he was sure somebody 
 said something. So you have a turn at that, and as 
 nobody said anything of the kind, it takes some time to 
 exhaust the point. And then you seize your hat, and are 
 about to put it on and rush for a sawdusty sandwich, when 
 you perceive that in the course of your various struggles, 
 and of the hurdle-chasing which takes place all day in the 
 solicitor's well, the nap of your new Lincoln & Bennett 
 has assumed the outward appearance of black astrachan, 
 so you have to stop and brush it with your sleeve. And 
 then, just as you are fairly getting off, in rushes one of your
 
 ATTENDING COURT 293 
 
 clerks to tell you that a client has called at the office who 
 said he must see you at all costs, and that he has been 
 obliged to bring him up to court, and he is now walking 
 up and down the passage waiting for you to come out. 
 Curtain. 
 
 It may be thought that the solicitor's day in Court, of 
 which I have tried to give some idea, has the compensation 
 of being lucrative. If anybody has that impression I ask 
 to be permitted, metaphorically speaking, to laugh savagely 
 in his face. I restrain my noble rage sufficiently not to 
 allow myself even to mention the contemptible sum for 
 which I am expected to undergo these miseries. I only 
 suffer myself to state in this sordid connection that a case 
 in Court presents a horrid fascination to a solicitor's staff, 
 insomuch that everybody in the office who can by hook or 
 crook make the faintest excuse for dropping in is certain to 
 come, and I have myself counted seven living persons to 
 whom I have had the privilege of paying salaries come into 
 Court in the course of the same case, thereby diluting to 
 the point of small silver, if not of coppers, my own per- 
 sonal gain from discharging the painful duty of which I 
 have endeavoured to give some description.
 
 ( 294 ) 
 
 THE WEARING OF THE GOWN 
 
 [Introductory Note. — The following address was deli- 
 vered at a mass meeting of indignant solicitors held in 
 Hyde Park not long before the publication of this volume. 
 It is computed that 250,000 solicitors were present, and 
 the proceedings were most enthusiastic. A strong force 
 of police was on the ground, but their services were not 
 needed, owing to the admirable conduct of the professional 
 mob. There were a few cases of picking pockets, but, so 
 far as could be seen, the thefts were not committed by the 
 solicitors present, but by barristers and others who made 
 their way into the meeting disguised in solicitors' gowns.] 
 
 It is always desirable to avoid the language of exaggera- 
 tion, but I suppose that no solicitor present at this great 
 meeting is ignorant of the fact that our inferior, humble, 
 and lowly branch of the legal profession is at the present 
 moment shaken to its very foundations by a crisis, for the 
 gravity of which no parallel is to be found in our con- 
 temptible history. 
 
 It is well known that most of us eke out a precarious 
 living by means of advocacy in the County Courts of 
 merry England. We have hitherto been permitted to 
 appear before those tribunals in whatever garments we 
 might choose to wear. Among these have been frock-
 
 THE WEARING OF THE GOWN 295 
 
 coats and morning-coats, and a short species of coat known 
 usually by a name that my modesty will not allow me to 
 repeat. We have worn tweed suits, serge suits, compound 
 blends of originally distinct suits. All this promiscuous 
 clothing has, according to our means and our taste, 
 covered our bodies and concealed within its folds our 
 ignorance of the most elementary principles of law. In 
 this same modest and varied raiment we have endeavoured 
 faithfully and to the best of our ability to defeat the ends 
 of justice ; to browbeat witnesses in vulgar imitation of the 
 worst traditions of the bar ; to quote authorities with un- 
 certain appreciation of their meaning, and at times quite 
 irrespective of their having any bearing at all upon the 
 case in hand ; to address five jurymen of humble rank 
 and decided local prejudices, as if they were the only five 
 righteous persons in their district and positive fountains 
 of wisdom and justice. We have done all this for a fee 
 ranging from ten and sixpence to the coveted guinea, and 
 occasionally dependent on results, and we have done it in 
 our ordinary every-day clothes, perspiringly but coolly, 
 humbly but proudly, viciously but amiably, ignorantly but 
 with deep learning. We have made very little money at 
 it, but we have been free as air — free to revel in the baggy 
 knees of our trousers, the shiny elbows and backs of our 
 coats, the imperfect starching of our dickies, the coy and 
 spasmodic appearances of our mended braces, to be noticed 
 by the close observer when an impassioned if irrelevant 
 argument has raised the waistcoat above the Trinity high- 
 water mark of the top button of the adjoining and very 
 important garment. 
 
 How different has been this life of liberty to the thral-
 
 296 THE WEARING OF THE GOWN 
 
 dom of the barrister ! He has been obliged to conceal all 
 these signs of a free, if impecunious, Briton in the livery 
 of wig and gown. Watch him hurrying from Court to 
 Court, purporting with a matchless air of ingenuous if 
 unsuccessful effort to attend exclusively to each of six 
 cases all on at the same time. See his hampered move- 
 ments as he attempts to skip along the corridors. Note 
 him, more particularly in summer, as he tears at his gown 
 and puts back the wig from his brow with the air of one 
 who would give worlds to strip and address the Court 
 in his under-wear. True, he may make more money than 
 we poor attorneys who conduct cases from half-a-guinea 
 upwards. But money is not everything, and sweet indeed 
 is the freedom of your own coat, waistcoat, dicky, and 
 pantaloons when weighed in the scales against the abject 
 slavery of a wig and gown, even if those emblems of the 
 serf be gilded with a substantial fee to him and also by 
 an inscrutable dispensation — his clerk. But this priceless 
 heritage of ours has been rudely assailed, for the edict has 
 lately gone forth that Solicitors appearing in County Courts 
 are in future to wear gowns. It was not enough that (in 
 addition to barristers), pew-openers, ushers, vergers, and 
 dissenting ministers have lost their birthright and appear 
 in a servile and critical livery when discharging their re- 
 spective functions. We who have never done harm to 
 anybody ; we who would not so much as hurt a fly ; we 
 who, though we may be generally fraudulent and sup- 
 ported largely by contributions of trust money belonging 
 to our clients, are in all other respects virtuous and blame- 
 less citizens — we forsooth are not to raise our voices in the 
 County Courts without first assuming this degrading robe.
 
 THE WEARING OF THE GOWN 297 
 
 What, I ask, is to be done in this grave professional 
 emergency ? Take my own humble case merely as typical 
 of others. I am asked by a milkman to appear in a metro- 
 politan County Court one day next week and support his 
 claim against a customer, who, for excellent reasons, dis- 
 putes his bill, and I am promised fifteen shillings if I win, 
 and five if I lose. But I have no gown. I thought that 
 an old black stuff dress of my mother might be adapted, 
 but she declares that no alteration will make it encircle my 
 waist, and that in any case it would be absurd to wear it 
 without a bustle which she can lend me, and other aids 
 to the figure which at all events she declares she cannot 
 supply. It may be mistaken pride, but I shrink from any 
 artificial additions to a manly presence of which I am not 
 ashamed. On the other hand, the pew-opener at my church 
 is enormous, and when I tried his gown on last Sunday 
 after the congregation had filed out, I felt as if I had gone 
 into the wholesale alpaca trade and was carrying all the 
 stock about with me. 
 
 Then I went to a costumier and looked at a gown 
 frequently hired out for use by the notary who comes in 
 with a marriage contract in Act I., and is about to witness 
 its signature by the hero and heroine when, in the interests 
 of the remaining acts, disturbing causes result in its being 
 torn up and the notary hustled out. I think that garment 
 might have done at a pinch, but the terms were really too 
 expensive, and would have left me hardly anything even 
 out of my fifteen shilling fee, while I should sustain a 
 positive loss if it were cut down to five shillings in con- 
 sequence of my losing the case. That contingency, I may 
 parenthetically say, is not remote, because my client can
 
 298 THE WEARING OP THE GOWN 
 
 only hope to pursue his milky way to success by means of 
 perjury, and he does not look to me like a really satisfac- 
 tory witness. 
 
 Of course, if I could gain a footing in one County Court 
 and stick there, a private gown would be an investment of 
 capital, as I should wear no coat under it or only my red 
 golfing coat ; but I only manage to get a County Court 
 case now and then, and there are millions of solicitors to 
 whom the same remark applies. 
 
 Again I say what are we to do ? I have thought over 
 the matter very anxiously, and the answer I think clearly 
 is that, in London and the suburbs at all events, the Law 
 Society must provide these gowns and send them out to 
 solicitors done up in bundles, just as useful garments are 
 sent out by maternity charities in equally deserving cases. 
 They might be hung up according to sizes in a room 
 specially set apart in the new building now rising proudly 
 in Chancery Lane, and a solicitor suddenly engaged to 
 conduct a County Court action could in case of urgency 
 telegraph to " Gowneries," Chancery Lane — which would, 
 of course, be the telegraphic address — in some such form 
 as the following : " Send gown Hackney County Court 
 addressed Turner Spotted Dog Mare Street must be twenty- 
 two inches round neck and fifty -five waist messenger will 
 find me waiting in Bar." 
 
 Whether such an arrangement would be self-supporting, 
 time alone can show. Personally, I think it would, and if 
 it were to work well the Society might enlarge its business. 
 It might, for instance, supply gowns on the hire-purchase 
 system to solicitors fortunate enough to need them often, 
 and who have a fancy for sticking to the same gown. It
 
 THE WEARING OF THE GOWN 299 
 
 might sell them at a moderate price on cash terms to 
 customers, and they could come and be measured by the 
 secretary, who would call out the sometimes depressing 
 result with the tape in his mouth to the assistant-secretary. 
 And when once firmly established who shall say where 
 this enterprise shall stop ? Carried away by enthusiasm I 
 see before me in a future that may not perhaps come in 
 my time, country solicitors sending up indifferent butter 
 and eggs and unsound horses and planting them on their 
 brethren in London through the medium of the Law 
 Society. I see London solicitors, through the same 
 medium, putting country solicitors on to those 'good things 
 in finance which are only good to the person who puts 
 the other person on to them. I see Whiteley getting jealous, 
 Barker uneasy, and Harrods depressed. I see the dawn 
 of a new era of professional prosperity. I see stretched 
 out an unlimited field for the pursuit of the most question- 
 able practices. Viewed in the prophetic light which fills 
 me at the present moment, I assert that what we may now 
 regard justly as an act of oppression, so cruel and senseless 
 that it might very easily have deluged our land in County 
 Court blood, will prove to have been a blessing in the 
 disguise of a most ridiculous, asinine, and humiliating 
 garment.
 
 ( 300 ) 
 
 A PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 [When turning over some old papers lately, I lighted upon 
 a manuscript copy, yellow with age, of an address evidently 
 prepared for delivery at a provincial meeting of the Incor- 
 porated Law Society by the President of the Society at that 
 time. I do not know which President it may have been, 
 or what provincial meeting was in view, or when the address 
 was prepared, or where it was to be delivered, or how the 
 original manuscript of it came into my possession, or whether 
 it was delivered in that form or at all. My memory is, in 
 fact, a total blank on all those points. I only know that I 
 found it, and that I was greatly struck by its pathos and elo- 
 quence on looking through it, and that I decided to take 
 upon myself to publish it ; and I hereby apologise to the 
 author, his executors, administrators, and assigns if he or 
 they think that in doing so I have taken a liberty.] 
 
 THE ADDRESS 
 
 It is customary on these occasions for your President to 
 take the opportunity of glancing briefly over the legal his- 
 tory of the past year, and of offering such general reflections 
 as occur to him upon matters of interest to our profession.
 
 A PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 301 
 
 I propose to follow that custom on the present occasion, 
 but to introduce one innovation by condensing my remarks 
 within the modest limit of eight minutes. 
 
 Twelve months ago our provincial meeting was held in 
 an ancient cathedral city. We were entertained with lavish 
 hospitality. We were taken to see churches. We were 
 pampered guests at a ball, a banquet, and a conversazione. 
 We were afforded the opportunity of fishing for bream with 
 highly-educated worms and refined gentles. Wherever we 
 went we were recognised as members of a great though 
 unscrupulous and rapacious profession. It may be that 
 even then a cloud had gathered over the professional 
 horizon, but if so it was no bigger than a statutory mort- 
 gage, and we saw it not. Not one of us would, in his wildest 
 dreams, or soberest moments, have anticipated that we should 
 meet to-day on a piece of waste ground usually conse- 
 crated to defunct cats, and that some of the most respected 
 members of the Council would now be traversing the streets 
 of this city rattling money-boxes and appealing for charitable 
 assistance on behalf of our wives and families ; while I, 
 your President, stand here with no more imposing rostrum 
 than a plank carpeted with County Court summonses, in 
 which my name appears as defendant, and supported by 
 two beer casks, and no other reading desk than the top of 
 our secretary's once glossy and respectable but now sadly 
 dilapidated hat. 
 
 Gentlemen, our profession lies low in the dust. De- 
 spoiled of all our privileges, stripped of nearly all our 
 work, brought down from the higher scale of costs to the 
 lower scale, from the lower scale to the lowest scale, from 
 the lowest scale to our bare disbursements, and these
 
 302 A PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 
 
 allowed only after taxation and production of a written 
 Agreement under Seal, specifically covering each item, 
 and bearing a los. stamp payable by us. And all this 
 in one short year. Well may we rub our bloodshot eyes 
 with our emaciated hands, and ask ourselves whether it 
 is indeed true, or a grizzly vision attributable to filling it up 
 too often and not putting in enough water. Unhappily it 
 is only too true. The twin monsters of officialism and 
 socialism are, as you all know, at the bottom of our ruin. 
 The Board of Trade has wiped the floor with us, and that 
 and other public departments reign in our stead. Our 
 company winding up work is now attached to the Re- 
 ceiver of Wrecks. Divorce proceedings are now prose- 
 cuted and defended on inclusive terms by the Master of 
 the Buckhounds, who, with a numerous staff, has been set 
 free from other duties. Landed property passes from 
 owner to owner by means of tickets obtained at all the 
 principal booking ofifices and libraries, where country seats 
 can be secured one month in advance. Marriage settle- 
 ments and wills have been abolished by a resolution inci- 
 dentally passed by the London County Council without 
 notice at a licensing meeting. No contracts are made, 
 because no one is required to perform one when he has 
 made it. Hardly anything is left for our profession to do, 
 and nothing is paid to us when we do it. 
 
 It is, I hope, superfluous for me to say that during this 
 stirring time the Council have held several meetings, and 
 that committees have been appointed to consider carefully 
 the very interesting subjects which I have now passed 
 briefly in review. We have made strong representations 
 to the Lord Chancellor and other eminent persons as to
 
 A PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 303 
 
 the hardships of our position, and, though unable to stem 
 the tide of socialistic legislation, we have been able to 
 secure some amelioration of our sad condition. It may 
 interest you if I enumerate the principal concessions thus 
 secured for our benefit. 
 
 In allotting to vacant alms-houses (all of which, as I may 
 remind you, have been appropriated by the State), prefer- 
 ence is now given to solicitors, more especially if they are 
 also members of the Council of the Law Society, and have 
 not earned ;i^5 in the last twelve months. 
 
 Solicitors are to be allowed to hold meetings in Tra- 
 falgar Square on any day in the week, provided they do 
 not shed blood. 
 
 The Incorporated Law Society's Examination Hall, being 
 no longer required for its original purpose, has been licensed 
 for music and dancing. A managing director has been 
 appointed, and it is hoped that, under his guidance, the 
 entertainments will be remunerative, and enable the Society 
 to relieve the more urgent cases of distress among us. 
 Four distinguished members of the council have been 
 engaged to dance a />as de quatre, and it is hoped that 
 arrangements will soon be concluded for a pas de six and 
 eight. It was hoped that another popular member of our 
 profession would give ventriloquial entertainments, but he 
 has assured the Council that in the present calamitous 
 state of the profession, his full heart will not allow him to 
 evolve amusement out of his empty stomach. 
 
 The Law Society's Hall will during the winter months be 
 open as a soup kitchen, at which the wives of solicitors will 
 be able to purchase excellent soup at a penny a quart. 
 Warm drafts of title deeds have been found to be very com-
 
 304 A PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 
 
 forting when conveyed carefully and allowed to settle ; and 
 the council have urgently appealed for gifts of conveyances, 
 leases, and mortgages, as they are no longer of value for any 
 other purpose, and may just as well be boiled. In the way 
 of clothing, cast-off suits, and especially administration 
 suits, have also proved useful in the most necessitous cases, 
 and have been distributed with discrimination by the Council 
 principally among themselves. 
 
 Gentlemen, these are the principal fruits of our labours 
 for the profession. We do not pretend that we have ac- 
 complished all we could desire, but we have at least done 
 our best. In a few weeks or months most of us will have 
 assumed the distinctive garments of our respective parish 
 unions, and be looking out anxiously for gifts from our 
 relatives and friends, and an occasional Sunday visit from 
 some barrister, whose fee-lists we have left unpaid in our 
 palmy days, or some client who cherishes gratitude for 
 futile services rendered to him, or some clerk who has 
 made a competence by means of a modest salary aug- 
 mented by occasional recourse to the office petty cash. 
 But let us remember even in that last stage of degradation 
 that we were originally gentlemen by Act of Parliament, 
 that parish relief is inseparably associated with the consti- 
 tutions of our country, and that by a quarrelsome and 
 argumentative demeanour, a steady persistence in getting 
 some unfair advantage — even if it be only a corner seat 
 near the fire — over other paupers, and a habit of encouraging 
 discord and promoting strife among those around us, we 
 may carry even into the workhouse those professional 
 characteristics which made us in happier times the respected 
 bane and universally esteemed terror of the community.
 
 ( 305 ) 
 
 WINGED JUSTICE 
 
 The law's delay is an old familiar topic, and, like the sea- 
 serpent and the colossal gooseberry born out of due season, 
 it never has been and probably never will be exhausted. 
 The law's uncertainty is also an old friend, but that feature 
 of justice, as administered in this country, is not to my 
 present purpose. I am, so to speak, only doing time now. 
 
 Much labour has been spent by chancellors, judges, and 
 other excellent persons, whose intentions have been strictly 
 honourable, in efforts to devise means of shortening legal 
 proceedings for the benefit of the British public, and there- 
 fore, though the British public will never believe this to the 
 dying day of its last surviving member, for the benefit of 
 legal practitioners. Many changes have been made, good, 
 bad, and indifferent, with that laudable object in view ; 
 and, in particular, I believe there is a court called the 
 Commercial Court, which has come into existence nobody 
 exactly knows how, and makes rules for itself nobody 
 exactly knows by what authority, and gallops along 
 nobody knows exactly where or minds much as long as 
 it always does gallop, and never walks, or trots, or ambles 
 quietly. 
 
 The subject is one to which I have myself given deep 
 attention, and it occurred to me some time ago that a close 
 examination of the administration of justice in foreign
 
 3o6 WINGED JUSTICE 
 
 countries might shed illumination on this vexed problem, 
 and enable me to offer suggestions worthy of consideration 
 by those in high places. I accordingly sold my practice 
 (an action is now pending as to the representations which I 
 made with regard to its value), and made an extended tour 
 throughout the world, in the course of which I studied the 
 legal procedure of every country that I visited. In one 
 country I studied it hard for six months, or I might even 
 say conversely for six months hard, as in my zeal I ab- 
 stracted portable property from another gentleman when 
 we were staying at the same hotel, in order that I might 
 see for myself how long it took to bring a prisoner to trial, 
 and whether short or long sentences were in favour with the 
 judges in these parts. > 
 
 On my return to England, home, and beauty, I collated, 
 and analysed, and sifted, and condensed, and greatly im- 
 proved upon all the facts 1 had collected, and from them 
 I evolved one simple harmonious whole, containing all the 
 good points of rapidity in every system of civilised justice 
 in the world, and one or two gathered from enterprising 
 races of savages, while at the same time suitable to the 
 exact needs of my own country. Some estimate will be 
 given of the colossal nature of my labours, when I say that 
 I have brought into the compass of one short statute about 
 to be passed the pith and marrow of 379 closely-written 
 note-books, compiled in 43 different countries, and cover- 
 ing on a modest estimate 2,000,000 folios of 72 words each. 
 I shall be pleased to have a copy of the contents of all the 
 note-books made for any one who wishes to read them t'n ex- 
 tenso at 4d., or to an intimate personal friend, 3d. per folio. 
 By an intimate personal friend I mean any one whom I
 
 WINGED JUSTICE 307 
 
 know really well — for instance, any one from whom I have 
 borrowed money and not felt any obligation to pay it back, 
 because of our friendship. 
 
 To the world at large I now give the result of these 
 stupendous labours, and it is my earnest hope that they 
 will bear fruit. I shall not object to their bearing a Uttle 
 fruit for myself in the shape of a testimonial — I mean a 
 real testimonial in the form of hard coin. No silver plate 
 will do for me, and expenditure of part of the money on a 
 portrait is absolutely barred. But while giving that hint 
 — if indeed so delicate and thoughtful an intimation can be 
 called a hint — I claim nothing as of right ; and moreover, 
 so generous and open is my nature, that if any gentlemen 
 like to come and see my note-books without bespeaking a 
 copy, they are very welcome to do so ; and I leave it entirely 
 to them to put what they like into the plate, which (with half- 
 a-crown in it for a decoy-duck) will be found on the table 
 of the room where hats and coats will be taken care of 
 during the performance. 
 
 I trust that I shall not be thought wanting in that modesty 
 which is my greatest, but by no means my only charm, if I 
 express a hope that, out of respect for the author's labours, 
 the following Act, when passed next session, will be gene- 
 rally cited as Turner's Greased Lightning Act. 
 
 THE ACT ITSELF 
 
 I. There shall be a Court for the rapid and record- 
 breaking administration of justice, adapted to modern ideas 
 and calculated to make Htigation attractive to suitors. The 
 said Court shall be called the Greased Lightning Court.
 
 3o8 WINGED JUSTICE 
 
 2. When an action is brought which is intended to be 
 tried in the Greased Lightning Court, the writ shall be 
 endorsed with a statement to that effect, and shall also have 
 on it a representation of the Lord Chief Justice for the time 
 being, attired in a full-bottomed wig and running costume, 
 as emblematic of swift justice, but nothing else need appear 
 thereon. 
 
 3. There shall be no pleadings, discover)', interrogatories, 
 or other interlocutory proceedings or preliminary canters in 
 the Greased Lightning Court, and the parties resorting to 
 that Court shall be prepared, the moment after the writ is 
 issued, to button their coats and go smack to trial. 
 
 4. In the said Court everything shall be either admitted, 
 or assumed, or implied, or inferred, or totally disregarded, 
 or forgotten, for the purpose of arriving at an immediate 
 decision, and of dazzling the public. 
 
 5. There shall be no appeal from the Greased Lightning 
 Court in any case, unless it is shown that none of the 
 material facts were before the Court, and then only when 
 the amount involved exceeds ^25,000. 
 
 6. If, when an action tried in the said Court is called on, 
 the plaintiff's counsel is picking up clerk's fees and some- 
 thing for himself elsewhere, the defendant's counsel shall 
 forthwith begin and conduct the plaintiffs case as well as 
 his own. If neither counsel is present, the usher shall 
 briefly tell the judge what the action is about, and judg- 
 ment shall thereupon be given. Provided that, if the usher 
 is at the time round the corner supporting nature with the 
 aid of the bar, anybody else in Court, except the solicitors 
 in the case, may explain the facts shortly to the judge. 
 
 7. Either party may requ're an action in the said Court
 
 WINGED JUSTICE 309 
 
 to be tried before a jury, but the jury shall be discharged 
 unless they agree on a verdict within five minutes after the 
 conclusion of the summing-up, however bewildering or 
 inconsistent the summing-up may be. In the event of 
 their being so discharged, another jury shall be instantly 
 empannelled, who shall hear the same summing-up as 
 nearly as the judge can remember it, but nothing else, 
 and if they also fail to agree on a verdict in five minutes, 
 the defendant's number shall be put up as the winner. 
 
 8. No expert witnesses shall be allowed in the Greased 
 Lightning Court, but the counsel for either party shall be 
 allowed to state shortly what would have been said by any 
 expert witnesses called on behalf of his client, and what fee 
 would have been paid for the evidence, and the evidence 
 shall thereupon be deemed to have been given and to have 
 been untrue. 
 
 9. The proceedings at the trial shall, as far as possible, 
 be of a colloquial, free-and-easy, go-as-you-please descrip- 
 tion, and to that intent the following rules shall be 
 observed by the Judge, counsel, solicitors, and parties 
 respectively : — 
 
 (a) The judge shall assume that he knows all the facts 
 before any of them have been stated, and shall 
 commence to make such passing comments as may 
 occur to him on that assumption. Should he 
 gradually realise that his thought-reading enter- 
 tainment has not been a success, he shall pre- 
 tend not to know it, and use his best endea- 
 vours to climb down without appearing to do so, 
 and counsel shall obsequiously render him all the 
 assistance in their power ■ aring such process. Any
 
 3IO WINGED JUSTICE 
 
 irritation resulting therefrom shall as far as possible 
 be expended on the solicitors. 
 (d) No counsel shall be allowed to make a set speech, 
 or to address the Court for more than three 
 minutes without interruption, or attempt to arrange 
 his ideas, or to think out or to digest any point, 
 or pay regard to any rule of evidence, or cite any 
 authority, or care a blow about the result. 
 (c) The solicitors in the case shall advance all counsels' 
 fees and other disbursements, be abused for every- 
 thing, be paid next to nothing, ruin their hats, lose 
 their umbrellas, tip the ushers, be pushed and 
 shoved about like a football^inside a Rugby scrum, 
 and, finally, if on the losing side, leave the Court 
 followed by a trail of discontented clients and ^ 
 reproachful uncalled witnesses, from whom they 
 shall be permitted to escape ultimately by a stra- 
 tegic movement to a retiring-room set apart for 
 the purpose and locked from inside, in which they 
 shall be allowed to remain till danger is over. A 
 fee of two shillings shall be payable for the use of 
 such room. 
 (</) The parties shall be spared nearly all the cost and 
 delay attendant upon ordinary litigation, and in lieu 
 thereof shall have a scramble for hot, short, sharp, 
 decisive, inexpensive, breathless, catch -'em - alive 
 justice, 
 lo. Where an appeal lies from the Greased Lightning 
 Court as hereinbefore provided, the same shall be heard 
 immediately, and the following procedure shall be ob- 
 served. The judge by whom the action has been tried
 
 WINGED JUSTICE 31 1 
 
 shall telephone to the Master of the Rolls, and having 
 ascertained that he is there, shall, so far as the imperfect 
 and peculiarly maddening working of the instrument shall 
 permit, tell him shortly the facts of the case,', if time has 
 allowed any of them to come out. The Master of the 
 Rolls shall thereupon mention the matter to any col- 
 leagues who may be sitting with him at the time, and then 
 telephone back their decision, which shall be announced 
 to the parties by the judge, and the necessary repairs shall 
 be done while the parties wait. If the telephone is out of 
 order the appeal shall be deemed to have been dismissed 
 with costs without calling on either side. 
 
 11. No solicitor shall be allowed to advertise himself 
 indirectly under cover of referring to the rapidity of pro- 
 cedure in the Greased Lightning Court, but this shall not 
 prevent any solicitor from writing to the newspapers from 
 his business address, to the effect that an action conducted 
 in his office was brought to trial in that Court in so many 
 days, and that his client was successful. 
 
 12. Any person who conscientiously objects to the juris- 
 diction of the Greased Lightning Court, and of any and 
 every other Court by law established, and to being subject 
 to any control or government whatsoever, shall, on pro- 
 ducing a doctor's certificate to the effect that he feels down- 
 trodden, be permitted to settle in Ireland, where he will be 
 as happy as the day is long.
 
 ( 312 ) 
 
 FUSION 
 
 From time to time suggestions of fusing into one the two 
 branches of the legal profession are, like the voice of the 
 turtle, heard in the land. Young barristers with no influ- 
 ence to back them pine to get into direct contact with the 
 actual client and to be no longer fended off from him by 
 the interposition of a solicitor's body. Solicitors impressed 
 with the belief that the divine afflatus of the genius of the 
 orator is within them, yearn to be allowed to address the 
 Court on their own hook, and to have a cut in for some of 
 those colossal fees paid to successful barristers for very 
 intermittent gusts and whirlwinds of personal attention to 
 any particular case. The public, in whose name so many 
 things are said, and over whose prostrate, and, as a rule, 
 passive body so many shrieking arguments are held, are 
 understood to have a sort of suspicion that for them to 
 employ a solicitor, and the solicitor in turn to resort to a 
 barrister, faintly approaches somehow to paying twice over 
 for the same article — law — and that it comes to be expen- 
 sive. The barometer of the subject rises and falls, but 
 seldom indicates very stormy weather. The question has 
 never, for instance, convulsed the profession itself in the 
 same way as .hat of providing tea and muffins for the mem- 
 bers of the Law Society within their own building, instead 
 of leaving them to the mercies of the outside purveyor of 
 buns and metropolitan milk. But still there it is, and it
 
 FUSION 313 
 
 smoulders, and it is always well to put out anything that 
 smoulders lest it should become a fiery flame when least 
 expected. Wherefore I have dipped into this subject in a 
 calm judicial spirit, such as characterises all my views on 
 law reform, and I have arrived at the conclusion that 
 fusion is not only possible but practicable, and not only 
 desirable but absolutely essential. I see in it a remedy 
 for all professional evils, an opening in life for the young 
 barrister, a golden harvest for the really eloquent solicitor, 
 the dawn, nay, the full noontide of a blessed period of 
 cheap litigation for the British public. I see high jinks in 
 all directions resulting immediately from this one reform. 
 Shall it then be delayed? Certainly not. Is any one 
 better fitted than I am to devise a scheme and carry it 
 through Parliament in triumph? Again, certainly not. 
 Have I already devised such a scheme and put it into the 
 form of a short, simple Act, containing only six sections ? 
 Yes, I have. Where is it ? Here it is. Will it be passed 
 next session ? Why, certainly. Dear reader, you have but 
 to peruse what follows, and then if you do not subscribe 
 to my statue (to which I have anonymously given ten pounds 
 myself) as well as my statute, well, I shall indeed be sur- 
 prised and pained. 
 
 THIS IS MY ACT AND DEED 
 
 Whereas various parties desire to see the two Branches 
 of the legal profession fused into one congealed heap. 
 
 And whereas most of them do not know what on earth 
 they are talking about, but that circumstance is quite 
 immaterial to the passing of this and some other Acts 
 of Parliament.
 
 314 FUSION 
 
 And whereas at a Provincial Meeting of the Incor- 
 porated Law Society held some years ago, a resolution on 
 the same subject was proposed and lost, but nobody seems 
 very clear as to what it was, or who lost it, or whether 
 anybody was present at all on the occasion. 
 
 And whereas in these distressing circumstances it is 
 desirable to pass some kind of Act in order to make the 
 world perfect, and everything in the legal line of business 
 quite comfortable and friendly all round. 
 
 Be it therefore enacted as follows : — 
 
 1. In this Act the word "fusee" shall mean a person 
 fused under the Act, and shall not include the article or 
 thing used for igniting tobacco unless the context impera- 
 tively requires it. 
 
 2. From and after the ist of January next Barristers and 
 Solicitors shall be fused. 
 
 3. The fusion hereby provided for shall extend to render 
 it lawful, but not expedient or exactly nice, for a Solicitor 
 to retain for his own benefit money remitted to him by a 
 client at his request for the special purpose of paying fees 
 due to Counsel before the passing of this Act. 
 
 4. Any Barrister or Solicitor who shall object to be fused 
 shall state the grounds of his objections in writing on or 
 before the 31st December next. The document shall be 
 on cream wove foolscap paper, and written on one side 
 only with a margin of one inch, and impressed with a ^£2^ 
 stamp, and shall be headed with the words, " In the Matter 
 of A. B., a proposed Fusee." Every such document shall 
 be entered in a list, and be open for inspection as a curiosity 
 at some convenient museum at all reasonable times on 
 payment of one shilling.
 
 FUSION 315 
 
 5. Upon the fusion provided for by this Act taking place 
 the following consequences shall follow : — 
 
 All persons who on the 31st December next shall 
 be Barristers or Solicitors shall on and after the ist 
 January next be called Barristicitors, and shall, when 
 professionally engaged, wear in front of some con- 
 venient part of their manly bosoms a circular badge, 
 of not less than six nor more than twelve inches in 
 diameter, with the word " Barristicitor " painted on it, 
 in two coats of good oil paint, in legible white 
 characters on a black ground. Provided that — 
 
 Barristers who shall on the 31st December next be 
 his Majesty's Counsel, more or less learned in the law, 
 shall wear the said badge behind instead of in front. 
 
 Save for the badge aforesaid, Barristicitors when 
 addressing the Court shall wear whatever garments 
 they please (even in a County Court), but no smoking 
 shall be permitted in any of the Superior Courts till after 
 2 P.M., except on Saturdays, when the hour shall be 
 II A.M., because on that day the Court rises soon 
 after that hour, and is sometimes said not to sit at all. 
 
 6. As a general principle partnership association shall 
 be recognised as the best mode of giving effect to this Act, 
 and in the division of partnership work, and remuneration, 
 any Barristicitor who shall previously have been a Solicitor, 
 shall be considered entitled to do as little of the work and 
 get as much of the remuneration as possible, to the intent 
 that the passing of this Act may be to Solicitors the dawn 
 of a blessed dispensation of professional beer and skittles, 
 such as they have never hitherto so much as pictured in 
 their wildest dreams.
 
 ( 3i6 ) 
 
 LAND TRANSFER 
 
 [Note. — This paper was written some years before the passing of the 
 Land Transfer Act, and read to a learned audience, mainly composed 
 of lawyers, which accounts for the method of composition. I think I 
 may fairly claim credit (not pecuniary, for that is, I confess, denied to 
 me down my street, but of a higher kind) for the extent to which 
 legislation has been modelled on my suggestions, though I should, I 
 hope, be the first to admit that some improvements have been made in 
 the process of giving effect to them.] 
 
 When I was first asked to write a paper, and to read the 
 same on the present interesting occasion, I naturally turned 
 over in my mind the question what would be the most 
 attractive subject that I could introduce to your notice. It 
 must, I thought, be one of burning interest. It must 
 present features of light and shade, so that it may be 
 neither dull nor frivolous. It must above all things not be 
 hackneyed, but, on the contrary, must break out in an 
 entirely fresh place. In must, in short, be calculated to 
 make my audience bubble over with pleasure and intel- 
 lectual excitement. Deep reflection led me to the conclu- 
 sion that there was one subject which fulfilled all these 
 requirements, and so far as I knew had never before been 
 presented in any shape or form to any meeting of lawyers. 
 I refer to the Transfer of Land. I claim no credit for this 
 original thought, my only wonder being that no one has 
 ever taken up the subject before. 
 
 In approaching this matter, I desire in the first place to
 
 LAND TRANSFER 317 
 
 brush aside all technicalities. Whether the landowner is 
 possessed of an estate in fee simple, or in tail, or for life ; 
 whether his unbridled desires lie in the direction of building 
 houses, cutting timber, or obtaining minerals from the 
 bowels of the earth — these are points to which I attach no 
 importance, and which I disdain to discuss. I keep my 
 eye on one central point — a Land Registry. I fix my 
 attention on one all-important person — a Registrar. With- 
 out these any scheme for simplifying the Transfer of Land 
 must, in my opinion, be regarded as an aimless absurdity. 
 
 I would have, then, a Land Registry in a convenient 
 situation in the West-End of London, within easy reach of 
 the principal clubs. If a site in Piccadilly could be 
 secured, preferably overlooking the Green Park, it would 
 do admirably. The building should be so designed as to 
 sever completely the ofificial from the private departments ; 
 and this, I think, could best be done by arranging for all 
 official business to be transacted in the basement, and 
 having the area gate left open during office hours so that 
 any one who wanted to register a transfer of land could 
 easily go down there and do it. I would make no com- 
 pulsory charge for this accommodation, but would have a 
 money-box at the door with a reference to the Statute " De 
 Donis " on it in case any one felt grateful. Nobody has 
 hitherto felt very grateful for any measure of law reform so 
 far as my observation goes. 
 
 The main entrance would, of course, lead into the private 
 department ; and here I would have a spacious central 
 hall, from which would radiate a series of noble apartments 
 appropriated to the Registrar. There would be a dining- 
 room, a drawing-room, a billiard-room, a smoking-room, a
 
 3i8 LAND TRANSFER 
 
 day-nursery, and ample bedroom accommodation for the 
 Registrar, his wife, and family. The whole would be 
 elegantly furnished, and pictures of eminent judges (I 
 believe they are to be found) would adorn the walls. 
 
 From the ground floor a colossal staircase would take us 
 to suites of rooms set apart for the assistant-registrars, of 
 whom there would be six. Each of these gentlemen would 
 have his sitting-room, bedroom, and bathroom ; and there 
 would be in addition a common-room, card-room, and 
 gymnasium. 
 
 Ascending again to the second floor we should come to 
 less luxurious but thoroughly comfortable accommodation 
 for the staff, with ingenious speaking-tube communications 
 connected with the basement, and a hydraulic lift down to 
 the same, so that if any one should by design or accident 
 drop in there, the boy in charge might whistle up and 
 secure the immediate attendance of any official not other- 
 wise occupied. 
 
 On the third floor there would be a kitchen and all its 
 accessories in charge of a carefully-selected chef and com- 
 petent staff of assistants. 
 
 From the building I pass to the still more important 
 question of the selection of the Registrar and his six 
 assistants. 
 
 The first would be a very difficult post to fill. He must 
 have passed the Solicitor's Preliminary Examination, and 
 thus be a man of advanced culture and refinement. He 
 must have a good presence and engaging manners. He 
 must have no obstinate prejudices on the subject of Land 
 Transfer, but must regard all classes of estates in land in 
 an equal and sublimely indifferent spirit. He must be
 
 LAND TRANSFER /319 
 
 trusted not to create equitable mortgages on deeds left 
 with him, unless really pressed to meet a heavy bill. He 
 must have a ready wit in the way of making portentous 
 official returns out of the slenderest materials in the most 
 unintelligible form. He must play a good rubber, be 
 hospitably disposed, and not too curious as to the acts and 
 deeds of his assistants. Such a man should be of about 
 my own standing (and I may incidentally mention that I 
 possess all the other virtues described), and his salary not 
 less than _;^5ooo a year. 
 
 The selection of the Registrar's assistants would also be 
 a matter of great importance. There should, I think, be 
 a prescribed limit of age, and I would suggest that it should 
 be fixed between the ages of twenty-one and seventy-five, 
 so as to exclude on the one hand men of insufficient ex- 
 perience, and on the other hand those who are past the 
 prime of life. Their fighting weight should not, I think, 
 be under eleven stone. Their capacity should be tested by 
 examination before their names can be put up, and the 
 following appear to me to be, merely by way of illustration, 
 appropriate tests and subjects : — 
 
 (i) A paper designed to elicit the candidate's knowledge 
 of the great Law Reforms of the past century in their 
 bearing upon the Principles and Practice of Golf. 
 
 (2) A short Essay on Urbanity ; illustrated by examples 
 of the demeanour of eminent leaders at the Bar to junior 
 counsel and solicitors at consultations and in Court. 
 
 I have reflected over the question whether to these sub- 
 jects should be added a paper having reference to the 
 registration of title to land, but, on the whole, I think not. 
 The subject is a difficult one, and I should not wish to
 
 320 LAND TRANSFER 
 
 damp the spirits of the competitors by compelling them 
 to study a process with which, after all, the Registrar's 
 assistants will have so little need to practically concern 
 themselves. 
 
 These are the outlines of the Scheme which I venture to 
 submit to the profession. Without going > far as to say 
 that it exhausts the whole subject of the transfer of land, I 
 do maintain that it goes to the very root of it, and that if a 
 Land Registry is started on this basis, the appointments of 
 Registrar and Assistant Registrars will become most popular. 
 It has cost me many sleepless nights and many hours of 
 laborious and gratuitous work to evolve it in its present 
 complete form, but I am proud of the profession to which 
 I belong. I am most willing to give a little of my time 
 and very exceptional intellectual powers to the service of 
 Law Reform ; and I shall be more than repaid for all I 
 have done if I live to see a stately building of the kind I 
 have described rise up in Piccadilly facing the Green Park. 
 
 But do not imagine that I stop at that point. The 
 building comes pre-eminently first, and next to it those 
 selected to fill a noble destiny within it, worked out as I 
 trust for the nation's benefit between the hours of eleven 
 and four. But even a Land Registry and its staff must at 
 times have something to do, lest their intellects should 
 become blunted, their energies paralysed, and time hang 
 too heavily upon them. Therefore I have addressed myself 
 also to the entirely new and original subject of Land 
 Transfer, and I venture to think that the following short 
 and simple Act will comprehend everything needful and 
 settle the whole matter without further discussion.
 
 LAND TRANSFER 321 
 
 THE ACT 
 
 1. In this Act the following expressions, whether used 
 or not, shall have the following meanings : — 
 
 "The Court" shall include every ill-lighted and badly- 
 ventilated place devoid of acoustic properties in which 
 justice is administered. 
 
 " Private Practice " shall not include the Attorney and 
 Solicitor General, whatever may be their personal views. 
 
 2. This Act shall, unless the contrary is anywhere ex- 
 pressly declared, be read in connection with and as 
 supplemental too, and whenever necessary or convenient, 
 shall be deemed to flatly contradict any other Act now 
 in force of any description on any subject unless any one 
 objects, provided that any such objection shall be stated 
 in writing, in firm but courteous language, and filed at the 
 office of the Receiver of Wrecks within three years from the 
 date in which the objection shall be conceived ; and such 
 date, though not mentioned again in this Act, is hereinafter 
 called " The Date of Objection." No further or other pro- 
 ceeding shall be necessary, and no notice shall be taken of 
 the objection. 
 
 3. The operation of this Act shall be limited for a period 
 of ten years to the private residences of the Lord Chancellor, 
 the Judges and Law Officers of the Crown, and the mem- 
 bers of the Council of the Incorporated Law Society, with 
 the rights, easements, and appurtenances thereto belonging. 
 
 4. The property included in the operation of Clause 3 of 
 this Act shall be hereinafter called the " Area," but that 
 expression shall not be deemed to limit this Act to the 
 
 X
 
 322 LAND TRANSFER 
 
 portion of a hereditament dedicated by prescription to 
 the clandestine reception of soldiers and constables in 
 uniform by domestic servants. 
 
 5. In order to register the title to property within the 
 Area no Area steps shall be necessary, but the title to such 
 property shall be deemed to be registered as from the date 
 of the passing of this Act. 
 
 6. Any person who has registered his title shall receive a 
 ticket, on production of which he shall thereafter be entitled 
 to admission without payment to the following places of 
 interest — St. Paul's Cathedral, The British Museum, The 
 Tower of London, and Westminster Abbey. 
 
 7. Whenever any owner of property within the Area, 
 whose title shall have been registered, mortgages or leases 
 or otherwise deals with the same, he shall not be at liberty 
 to do so. Provided, nevertheless, that he shall be at 
 liberty to do so on obtaining the fiat of the Attorney 
 General, who shall on every such occasion receive a fee of 
 fifty guineas, which he shall be at liberty to retain in addi- 
 tion to his other diminished emoluments. 
 
 8. Any person who wishes to have a certificate in respect 
 of any matter or thing done or omitted under this Act shall 
 be entitled to bespeak the same at the ofifice of the Masters 
 in Lunacy, but no such certificate shall have any force or 
 effect except so far as it may have any such force or effect 
 by virtue of anything therein expressed or implied, or left 
 out or put in afterwards. 
 
 9. No Solicitor shall be required or allowed to discharge 
 any professional or other duties in connection with the 
 registration of title or the transfer of land, and subject to 
 the provisions hereinafter contained, this Act shall operate
 
 LAND TRANSFER 
 
 323 
 
 as an Act of Bankruptcy on the part of all practising 
 Solicitors. 
 
 10. A building shall, with all reasonable expedition, be 
 erected somewhere, and shall when erected be styled " The 
 Refuge for Solicitors ruined by the Land Transfer Act," 
 which title shall be printed in conspicuous letters over the 
 main entrance. 
 
 11. Any Solicitor shall be entitled to take up his abode 
 in the said Refuge on production of his practising certifi- 
 cate, and on his making a statutory declaration that, in con- 
 sequence of the Land Transfer Act, he is no longer able to 
 support himself and his family, or has no longer any wish 
 to do so. He shall, if married, have the option of also 
 claiming admission for his wife, and shall fill up a form as 
 follows : — 
 
 Wife's full 
 name. 
 
 Wife' 
 
 s actual 
 
 or 
 
 alleged 
 
 age 
 
 
 Any remarks 
 about her 
 personal 
 appearance 
 and habits. 
 
 Whether applicant 
 would rather have 
 wife admitted, or 
 prefers freedom, in 
 which latter case in- 
 sert in this column 
 the words, ' ' Not 
 me. " 
 
 12. Solicitors admitted to the said Refuge shall have free 
 lodging and board, and two complete Chancery suits of 
 clothing per annum. They shall be allowed to be visited 
 by friends on appointed days, and to receive presents of 
 tea and snuff. No Solicitor residing in the said Refuge 
 shall be entitled to practise law, but he may practise 
 anything else he likes — except the cornet. 
 
 13. Every solicitor who shall expire by effluxion of time
 
 324 LAND TRANSFER 
 
 or otherwise in the said Refuge shall be economically 
 buried at the expense of the State in some convenient spot 
 within four days after his demise, and the operation of this 
 Act shall be suspended during the funeral as a token of 
 respect. The Dead March in Saul shall be played by a 
 brass band in the funeral procession if the deceased Solicitor 
 shall, within two days after his departure, bespeak it in 
 writing, but not otherwise.
 
 ( 325 ) 
 
 THE LONG VACATION 
 
 A Rejected Address prepared for a Provincial Meeting of the 
 Incorporated Law Society. 
 
 The Long Vacation is an institution of great antiquity, as 
 indeed the very title implies, for it is derived from the two 
 purely Saxon words, "long" and "vacation." Its origin 
 has been attributed to various sources, but the true root of 
 it is undoubtedly to be traced to William Rufus. It is 
 recorded of that hirsute monarch in that monumental, but, 
 I fear, now little-read work, "Snooke's Digest " (vol. xliii, 
 p. 27), that while hunting one day in Battersea Park his 
 horse shied at a strange looking object which, on exam- 
 ination, turned out to be a typical female of the time in 
 rational costume on a bicycle. 
 
 The king was nearly thrown from his horse, and on 
 recovering his composure he swore a good round oath — 
 measuring in circumference about 24 inches. 
 
 " By the blood of my ancestor, Henry the Eighth," quoth 
 he to the Lord Chancellor Eldon, " we will have no such 
 mummery as this. Tell the judges to come to Queen's 
 Bench, Court No. 7, to-morrow morning, and bring this 
 beldame too, and we will soon see whether our favourite 
 sport is to be interfered with by these fe male monstrosities 
 on bicycles. And now, my lords, let us again to the chase,
 
 326 THE LONG VACATION 
 
 and see if we cannot shoot a few more foxes with our 
 trusty cross-bows." 
 
 On the following day, which happened to be the loth of 
 August, the judges assembled in their Sunday clothes and 
 full-bottomed wigs, and the king, who was graciously 
 pleased to come in person, told them to find the woman 
 guilty of high treason and to leave the sentence to him. 
 They respectfully asked to be permitted first to hear 
 whether she had aught to say in her defence. 
 
 "Hear her," roared the irritable sovereign. "We can 
 stand a good deal, but, by the bones of the departed Saint 
 Charles I., before we listen to the drivel of yon unsexed 
 buffoon, we will see you all ducked from the Thames em- 
 bankment hard by the obelisk." 
 
 " Sire," interrupted the accused female, as in deference 
 to the presence of royalty she flicked the dust off" her 
 bloomers, which, owing to her having been in close cus- 
 tody, she had had no opportunity of changing for more 
 suitable attire, "this is not justice; this is blatant, brutal, 
 beastly tyranny. I am not unsexed. I am merely a New 
 Woman coming out in monthly parts." 
 
 "Parts or no parts," retorted William II., "and by 
 heaven it is difficult to tell what parts you have in that 
 flip-flappery, we will not hear you. Judges, do as we tell 
 you and keep not our sacred person waiting, as there are 
 confounded draughts in these New Courts of Justice, and 
 our royal nose begins to sniffle already like a leaking cask 
 of our favourite Malmsey." 
 
 The judges hesitated, looked at each other, sent for the 
 Annual Practice, and looked up Order XIV., Rule i, 
 while the king, in growing impatience, gnawed his mous-
 
 THE LONG VACATION 327 
 
 tache and puffed at his cigarette. Then the Lord Chief 
 Justice, collecting himself from different parts of the Court, 
 pointed out with deep submission, but at the same time 
 with dauntless courage, that it was contrary to the tradi- 
 tions of the Bench to desecrate justice at the whim of a 
 red-haired, foul-mouthed, cross-eyed apology for a reigning 
 sovereign. 
 
 "Sooner than do this, sire," he concluded, "we would 
 go hence as one man and be seen no more in these Courts 
 for a whole calendar month, hard as it would be to us to 
 obstruct the sacred fountain of justice and tear ourselves 
 away from this imposing pile of dark passages." 
 
 " A month, dost thou say, thou miserable spokesman of 
 a row of word-twisting, straw- splitting old women. By the 
 sanguinary Wars of the Roses you shall not set foot here 
 again, any one of you, until our birthday, which falls on 
 the 2nd of November, and so shall it be from the loth 
 August to the 2nd November as long as this fair realm 
 shall last." 
 
 While this terrible tragedy was being enacted, the cul- 
 prit gradually made her way towards the monarch, whose 
 naturally brutal features relaxed as he gradually realised 
 that she was a decidedly good-looking woman. Giving his 
 hand with true royal grace he led her out of Court and 
 insisted on personally whistling for a hansom on her 
 account. 
 
 So much for the historical aspect of the question, 
 which I find is little known. Let us now consider 
 whether an institution so striking in its inception, so 
 hallowed by time, so mellowed by strict observance, 
 should be uprooted.
 
 328 THE LONG VACATION 
 
 This view of my subject naturally divides itself into four 
 parts, (i) Do the Bench desire any alteration? (2) Do 
 the Bar? (3) Do the Solicitors? (4) Do the PubUc? 
 
 (i) The Bench. I think I might go so far as to say that 
 they on the whole would prefer not to disturb it. No 
 doubt, there have been whispers that some of the judges 
 would rather sit all the year round, and the name of one 
 judge has been mentioned as an instance of a judge, who, 
 like the psalmist, rises early and never cares for the rest — 
 except when playing billiards. Still, as a whole, the judges 
 are resigned to the long vacation from a high sense of 
 duty. 
 
 (2) The Bar. 1 regret to say that I am unable to give 
 any information as to their sentiments, but the truth is 
 that I have been all round the Temple and Lincoln's Inn 
 without finding anybody at chambers, except one junior, 
 and he was oiling his bat, and had a lady to tea, whom he 
 introduced to me as his first cousin. Had our provincial 
 meeting been held a month later I should doubtless have 
 been able to supply this blank. 
 
 (3) Solicitors. They, poor crushed worms, have been 
 passing a good many resolutions of late years, and most of 
 them seem to want to abolish the long vacation altogether. 
 They don't see why the judges should go off to the play- 
 grounds of Europe and nearly all the barristers follow suit, 
 while the solicitor has to keep his office going and snatch 
 his hasty fortnight at Southend, or, it may be, on the sands 
 of Margate, when he can, because clients will marry, and 
 die, and assault, and buy, and sell, and let, and start gold 
 companies, and wreck them, and make agreements, and 
 break them, and otherwise play the game of life, although
 
 THE LONG VACATION 329 
 
 the Courts are not sitting. They don't like being in the 
 dark alone. They want the other foxes to have their tails 
 cut off. They prefer the idea of having companions in 
 misery. Theirs is rather the bitter cry of the snubbed, 
 sat-upon, ridiculed, submerged attorney than the strident 
 yell of the whole-souled, indigestible reformer, whom 
 some quiet souls would not object to see eaten up with 
 zeal. 
 
 (4) The Public. They, of course, do not matter, and 
 I will not waste the valuable time of this Provincial 
 meeting by saying what their wishes may be. I don't 
 think they really know what they do want, and I am sure 
 I don't. 
 
 A few words in conclusion as to the true remedy. I am 
 personally in favour of abolishing this survival of the dark 
 ages altogether. I would have the judges sit all the year 
 round. I would have justice administered continuously and 
 free to all. I would have no more Bills of Costs rendered 
 to anybody. I would have no fees marked on briefs, 
 and if marked I would have them not paid, and if paid 
 I would have them returned. I would have the 
 Chambers of Counsel and the offices of solicitors avail- 
 able without charge to all female clients of prepossessing 
 appearance. 
 
 But these may be Utopian visions, and I know well that 
 such sweeping reforms would encounter all the weapons of 
 vested interest and unscrupulous opposition. Therefore 
 I advocate as a matter of practical politics a less drastic 
 measure of reform, which we may reasonably hope that the 
 influence of our great profession will suffice to carry now, 
 and that is to leave things exactly as they are, except that
 
 330 THE LONG VACATION 
 
 the long vacation shall in future commence on the evening 
 of the nth of August instead of the morning of the 12th, 
 and terminate on the morning of the 24th October instead 
 of the evening of the 23rd. This would at least show that 
 we are in grim earnest, and when that is realised larger 
 schemes cannot be much longer delayed. 
 
 Gentlemen, you have highly honoured me at this Pro- 
 vincial Meeting by listening to my observations, and I 
 thank you from my heart — all seven ^ of you. It is no 
 light matter to have come, and in several instances brought 
 your wives, to this distant town in the cause of the pro- 
 fession and the public, and to have attended here on this 
 second day after the high time you have most of you had 
 in this seductive city. I know well too that other attrac- 
 tions have been dangled before you which you must have 
 been more than human to resist; that you might at this 
 moment have been going over a biscuit factory, or inspect- 
 ing in a fog the river which I understand pursues its course 
 somewhere about here ; or examining fossils at the local 
 museum. You might be in the street furtively glancing 
 at the bonnie lasses of this place with one eye, while 
 keeping the other fixed with every appearance of matri- 
 monial fidelity on your respective wives. All this and 
 more you might have done. But you are here — goodness 
 only knows why — glued to seven cane-bottomed chairs, 
 while I have been addressing you on this abstruse subject, 
 so familiar, I fear, to all of you, but yet, I trust, made fresh 
 
 ^ This was prophetically intended as a covert allusion to the small 
 number likely to be present when the paper was read. It might, 
 of course, have had to be slightly reduced or increased according to the 
 actual number.
 
 THE LONG VACATION 331 
 
 on the present occasion by somewhat original treatment. 
 Noble hearts ! Faithful souls ! Consummate bores ! 
 Richly have you earned the cold collation at half-a- 
 crown apiece now awaiting you in the next room, and 
 the Provincial frolics that are to follow it. 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson ^ Co. 
 Edinburgh &> London
 
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 THE PLOT OF THE PLACARDS AT RENNES, 
 
 1802. (Le Complot des Libelles. ) By Gilbert Augustin Thierry. 
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 THE DISAPPEARANCE OF GEORGE DRIFFELL. 
 
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 Second Edition. Crown 8vo, Ss. 6d. 
 
 GLEAMS OF MEMORY; 
 
 WITH SOME REFLECTIONS. 
 
 THE WORLD. "Of all the personal books that have appeared of late years, Mr. Ji 
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 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
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 old and new, the stories are all well told. . . . And then the spirit of the book is emint 
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 no other, it should have readers in abundance." 
 
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 THE HEIR OF THE AGES. 
 
 THE SPECTATOR.— "' The Heir of the Ages' is as pleasant and attractive a story a« 
 can expect to come across." 
 
 THE ATHEN.ffiUM.— " Mr. Payn has always taken a cheerful view of life, but in ' The 
 of the Ages ' he surpasses himself. . . , Through it all Mr. Payn is at his best." 
 
 THE ACADEMY. — "As bright, as clever, and as interesting as any of its predecessors. 
 one respect — namely, as regards clear, sympathetic, and graphic delineation of characte 
 is almost superior to any others by the sam«) writer." 
 
 "Pleasant and unassuming papera." — Manchebtbb Guabdiaw. 
 With a Portrait, and a Memoir bv Lbslib Stephen. Grown 8vo, 6s. 
 
 THE BACKWATER OF LIFE; 
 
 OR, ESSAYS OF A LITERARY VETERAN. 
 
 ATHEN.SUM. — "Even those who know not Payn can realise, after reading Mr. Step! 
 admirable paget>, something,' of the esteem and tenderness which all who were brought 
 either social or business relations with him felt for the humorous companion and gentle criti 
 
 TIMES.— "The selection has been judiciously made. His many friends wiU seem to 
 in ' The ijackwater of Life ; or, Essays of a Literary Veteran,' the last echoes of the fau 
 roioc:" 
 
 London : SMITH, ELDER. & CO., 15 Waterloo Plaob. S.W.
 
 THE 
 
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 Britisb Weekly.— "A work of 
 
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 '^ ot and passionate hearts. " 
 
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 NOVELS BY S. R. C ROCKETT. 
 
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 omancist could desire ; the ' thrills ' 
 re on every page." 
 
 THIRD 
 IMPRESSION. 
 
 Crown 8vo, 6s. 
 
 Daily MaiL-; 
 
 interesting story.'' 
 
 Scotsman. — "One of the most 
 successful of Mr. Crockett's recent 
 essays in romance. . . . Full oi 
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 Christian World.— "Well in- 
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 intf:rest, told with a verve worthy 
 of Crockett in his best days." 
 
 SECOND IMPRESSION. With a Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6s. 
 
 LITTLE ANNA MARK. 
 
 LITTLE 
 
 Anna Mark. 
 
 SECOND 
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 Daily Express.— " One of the 
 
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 of ' The Stickit Minister.'" 
 
 THIRD IMPRESSION. With 8 Full-page Illustrations. Crown Svo, 6s. 
 
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 Academy. — " A stirring story of 
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 THE 
 
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 THIRD 
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 and we pass from sensation to 
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 told with sustained vigour and 
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 THE RED AXE. 
 The Red Axe. 
 
 THIRD 
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 women." 
 
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 at once fresh, original, and pic- 
 turesque." 
 
 FOURTH IMPRESSION. Crown 8vo, 6s. 
 
 CLEG KELLY, arab of the city. 
 
 Spectator. — "The story teems 
 with incidents of all sorts, and it 
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 It is a thoroughly good and in- 
 teresting novel," 
 
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 FOURTH 
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 Crown Svo, 6s. 
 
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 fiction it is this heroic ragamuffin." 
 
 Westminster Gazette.—" Cleg 
 
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 * London: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place, S.W.
 
 WORKS BY F. ANSTEY. 
 
 THE BRASS BOTTLE. By F. Anstey, Author of " Vice-Versl," 
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 From THE SPECTATOR. — " In his logical conduct of an absurd proposition, in his fantastic 
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 THE TALKING HORSE ; and other Tales. Popular Edition. 
 
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 From THE SATURDAY REVIEW.— "A capital set of stories, thoroughly cleyer and 
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 From THE ATHEN.^UM.— "The grimmest of mortals, in his most surly mood, could hardly 
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 THE GIANT'S ROBE. Popular Edition. Crown 8vo, 6s. Cheap 
 
 Edition. Crown 8vo, limp red cloth, 2s. 6d. 
 
 From THE PALL MALL GAZETTE.— "The main interest of the book, which is very 
 
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 page threatens to bring down doom on the head of the miserable Mark. Will he confess? Will he 
 drown himself? Will Vincent denounce him? Will Caffyn inform on him? Will his wife abandon 
 him ? — we ask eagerly as we read and cannot cease reading till the puzzle is solved in a series of 
 exciting situations." 
 
 THE PARIAH. Popular Edition. Crown 8vo, 6s. Cheap Edition. 
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 VICE VERsA; or, a Lesson to Fathers. Cheap Edition. 
 
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 which a sober man may laugh without shame from beginning to end, it is the book called ' Vice 
 VersS ; or, a Lesson to Fathers." . . . We close the book, recommending it very earnestly to all 
 fathers in the first instance, and their sons, nephews, uncles, and male cousins next." 
 
 A FALLEN IDOL. Cheap Edition. Crown 8vo, limp red cloth, 
 
 2s. 6d. 
 
 From THE TIMES.— "Will delight the multitudinous public that laughed over 'Vice Verst.' 
 . . . The boy who brings the accursed image to Champion's house, Mr. Bales, the artist's factotum, 
 and above all Mr. Yarker, the ex-butler who has turned policeman, are figures whom it is as pleasant 
 to meet as it is impossible to forget. " 
 
 LYRE AND LANCET. With 34 Full-page Illustrations. Crown 
 
 8vo, limp red cloth, 2S. 6d. 
 
 From THE SPEAKER. — "Mr. Anstey has surpassed himself in 'Lyre and Lancet.' . ■ . 
 One of the brightest and most entertaining bits of comedy we have had for many a day." 
 
 London: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place, S.W.
 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 THE ROLIi-CAIili OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. By 
 
 Mrs. A. Murray Smith (E. T. Bradley), Author of 'Annals of Westminster 
 
 Abbey' &c. THIRD EDITION. With 25 Full-page Illustrations and 5 Plans. 
 
 Large crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 TIMES. -' It is impossible to read even the first chapter of this highly interesting 
 
 volume without forthwith realising that we have here a work of a totally different order 
 
 from the cheap book-making which year by year selects Westminster Abbey for its 
 
 subject. Such a book as the " Roll-Call" could have been penned only by one who 
 
 knows and loves every feature in that glorious old pile ; who has wandered through its 
 
 aisles every hour of the day and night ; who has watched the wondrous effects produced 
 
 by the subtlest changes of light and temperature : one, in short, who for upwards of 
 
 twenty years has drunk deeply of the spirit which haunts Westminster Abbey from end 
 
 to end. We must therefore offer a hearty welcome to this really excellent work, and we 
 
 are convinced that the great mass of historical material which it contains will become 
 
 more and more valuable as time goes on.' 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLDS NOTE-BOOKS. By the Hon. 
 
 Mrs. WoDEHOUSE. Second Impression. Small crown 8vo. 4^. 6ti. 
 TIMES. — 'No one who is interested in Matthew Arnold can afford to be without 
 this book, which gives us the thoughts he chose as his own to live with, and reveals hioa 
 intimately without violating a single secret.' 
 
 THE NOISY YEARS. By Mrs. Percy Dearmer, Author of 
 
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 PALL MALL GAZETTE.—' The " Noisy Years" is really delicious. Indeed, 
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 think of any other coming within reasonable distance of it for tenderness, grace, and 
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 THE ADVENTURES OF DOW^NY Y. GREEN, RHODES 
 
 SCHOLAR AT OXFORD. By George Calderon. THIRD IMPRESSION. 
 
 With 16 Illustrations by the Author. Crown Svo. 3^. (>d. 
 MONTHLY REVIEIV. — ' Mr. George Calderon has joined in a conspiracy with 
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 standard of authorship to a height beyond the reach of ordinary genius.' 
 
 THE STORY OF THE BOLD PECOPIN : a Legend of the 
 
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 BiRRELL. With 8 Illustrations by H. R. Miliar. Fcp. 410. 7^. 6a'. 
 
 GEN 1 LEWOMAN. — ' Too high praise cannot be given to the translators for the 
 
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 preserving the beauty of thought and the romantic picturesqueness of the original.' 
 
 WELLINGTON'S LIEUTENANTS. By Alexander Innes 
 
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 YORKSHIRE POST. — ' A series of soldiers' memoirs which, on the whole, make 
 
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 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU. By Clive Phillipps- 
 
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 Fcp. Svo. 5i- 
 TIMES. — ' These are bracing songs, full of the Imperial spirit, of healthy senti< 
 ment and fresh air, and not without a true sense of poetic style.' 
 
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 virile and straightforward.' 
 
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 SPECTA TOR. — 'This excellent book will interest ordinary readers as well as the 
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 COLLOQUIES OF COMMON PEOPLE. By James Anstie, 
 
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 TIMES. — ' Mr. Anstie's discussions show a clear apprehension of philosophical argu- 
 ments and counter-arguments ; and the various positions advanced and criticised are 
 aptly and precisely stated. . . . The measure of success achieved is to Mr. Anstie's credit,' 
 
 London: SMITH, ELDER, &~CO., 15 Waterloo yiace7s.W.
 
 WORKS BY W.jLF ITCHETT, b.a.. ll.d. 
 
 Nelson and His Captains: Sicetches of 
 
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 PUNC//. — ' My Baroiiite, having read all Dr. Fitchett's tales of battle on land, 
 thinks his best piece is his sea i)iece. . . . Saxon and Celt reading the glowing narrative 
 will feel proud to know it's all true." 
 
 ACADEM)'. — 'A sjiirited picture of Nelson and his times. . . . The story which 
 the author has to tell is almost incredible in its directness of detail, but certainly fascina- 
 ting in its charm.' 
 
 The Tale of the Great iVIutiny. Second Im- 
 
 PRESSION. With 8 Portraits and 4 Plans. Crown 8vo, Cs. 
 
 GUARDIAN. — ' It is almost impossible to lay the book down. The Story of those 
 summer months of 1857 must ever appeal to English readers.' 
 
 BOOKMAN. — 'Written with all the swing and dash, with all the careful accuracy 
 and brilliant descriptive power which have made Dr. Fitchett's books so deservedly 
 popular." 
 
 How Eng-land Saved Europe: the Story 
 
 of the Great War (1793-1815). Second Impression. In 4 vols., crown 8vo, 
 with Portraits, Facsimiles, and Plans, ds. each. 
 TIMES. — ' The story is broadly told, but very vigorously. It is not without signifi- 
 cance that this excellent " Story of the Great War," at once popular in the best sense, 
 well-informed, full of instruction, and very attractively written, should be the work of a 
 Colonial writer.' 
 
 GUARDIAN. — ' Mr. Fitchett has achieved a real success, and the boy who cannot 
 read these volumes with pleasure (and profit) is hopeless. They are, if boyhood would 
 but see it, more enthralling than half the novels published.' 
 
 FigrhtS for the Flag". Second Edition. With i6 
 
 Portraits, 13 Plans, and a Facsimile Letter of the Duke of Marlborough. Crown 
 8vo, bs. 
 
 SPECTATOR.— '"Fights for the Flag" is as good as "Deeds that Won the 
 Empire." To say more than this in praise of the book before us is unnecessary, for 
 "Deeds that Won the Empire" was one of the best collection of popular battle studies 
 ever given to the public. . . . No writer ever had more completely the art of making 
 one realise how opposing forces move both by land and sea.' 
 
 REVIEW OF REVIEWS. — 'This is the second volume of the series which has 
 achieved one of the greatest literary successes of our time. . . . As a gift-book, or as a 
 book to take up and read at odd moments, or to devour at a prolonged sitting, this book 
 has few equals, and will probably equal or eclipse the popularity of its predecessors.' 
 
 Deeds that Won the Empire. Fourteenth 
 
 Edition. With 16 Portraits and 11 Plans. Crown Svo, 6s. 
 
 SPECTA TOR. — ' Not since Macaulay ceased to write has English literature pro- 
 duced a writer capable of infusing such life and vigour into historical scenes. The 
 wholesome and manly tone of Mr. Fitchett's book is specially satisfactory. . . . The 
 book cannot but take the reader by storm wherever it finds him.' 
 
 TIMES. — ' " Deeds that Won the Empire " is admirably conceived and written. 
 Wolfe's striking feat of arms at Quebec, Hawke's splendid victory in Quiberon Bay, 
 Busaco, Albuera, the Nile, the action of the Shannon and Chesapeake, with other 
 memorable fights by sea and land, are vividly described. Mr. Fitchett has not sacrificed 
 historical accuracy to dramatic effect, and his words ring true.' 
 
 Weliingfton's Men : some Soidier-Autobio- 
 
 graphics. [' Kincaids Adventures in the Rifle Brigade' ; ' Rifleman Harris' ; 
 
 Anton's 'Military Life'; Mercer's 'Waterloo.'] Edited by W. H. Fitchett, 
 
 M..'^., LL.D. Crown Svo, 6 J. 
 SPECTATOR. — ' Mr. Fitchett has ere this sounded the clarion and filled the fife 
 to good purpose, but he has never done better work than in rescuing from oblivion the 
 narratives which appear in this volume. Here we have the incidents of war told by the 
 actors themselves, and each actor saw a dilTerent side of the thing, and had his own way 
 of telling about it. We feel very grateful to Mr. Fitchett for his skilful editing of four 
 stories which ought not to be allowed to die.' 
 
 London: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place, S.W.
 
 SMITH, ELDER,^& CO/S PU BLICATIONS. 
 
 THE NEW NATION : a Sketch of the Social, Political, and 
 
 Economic Conditions and Prospects of the Australi^in Commonwealth. By 
 
 Percy F. Rowland, late Scholar of Hertford College, &c. Crown 8vo. 7^. 6J. 
 
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