up would sustain by her failure to secure such a husband."
From the last it is clear that his hon'ble lordship meant that, in secret, he has the highest opinion of my merits, though he entirely overlooked the obvious fact that he would have better carried out his benevolent and patronising intentions towards me by affecting (just now) to consider me only a worthless poor chap. But even the most subtly-trained European intellects are curiously backward in such elementary chicaneries!
3 p.m.—The jury are assembling their heads. They seem generally agreed—except a couple of stout ones who are lolling back and listening with mulish simpers. If I were certain that they were fellow-colleagues from Punch, I would encourage them by secret signs to persevere—but who knows that they may not be partisans of the plaintiff? If so, they deserve to be condignly punished for such obstinate dull-headedness. . . . The foreman has asked that they may retire, whereupon Justice Honeygallanswers them, "certainly," and retires his own person contemporaneously. . . .
3.15 p.m.—The jury are still absentees. In reply to my questions, my solicitor says that, as far as he can see, the damages can't be under £250, and may amount to a cold "Thou" (or thousand)! Adding that, if I had only let him brief Witherington, Q.C., I might have got off
