times the extreme condescension to address me as an abbreviation), "I'll trot you up to him at once—and I say, A 1 idea! tell him you mean to be your own counsel, and do all the speechifying yourself. Native prince, in brand-new wig and gown, defending himself single-handed from wiles of artful adventuress—why, you'll knock the jury as if with old boots!"
"Alack," said I, sorrowfully; "though I am quite competent to become the stump orator at shortest notice, I do not see how I can enter my first appearance until I have carefully instructed Misters Ram and Jalpanbhoy in the evidence they are to give and leave untold, &c., and a week is too scanty and fugitive a period for such preparations!"
"Nonsense and stuff!" he replies, "you will have a lot more than that, since the week only applies to entering an appearance—which is a mere farcical formality that old Sid can perform in your place on his head." At which I was greatly relieved.
But on arrival at Mr Smartle's office in Chancery Lane, we were disappointed to be informed, by a small, juvenile clerk, that he was absent at Wimbledon on urgent professional affairs, and his return was the unknown quantity. However, after waiting till close upon the hour of tiffin, he unexpectedly turned up in a suit of knickerbockers, carrying a long, narrow bag full of metal-headed rods, and although rather adole-
