SEVENTH ENTRY.
To my intense surprise—shared, as far as I can see, by all my friends and relatives—I have managed to pass the "Bar Final"! I attribute the portentous fact to the Examiners having discreetly avoided all reference to the "Rule in SHELLEY's Case."
Find that the Students who are going to be "called within the Bar," have to be presented to the Benchers on one special evening, after dinner, in Hall. Ceremony rather funereal, at my Inn—but not the same at all Inns. About twenty of us summoned one by one to the High Table; several go up before me, and as there is a big screen I can't see what happens to them. Only—most remarkable circumstance this—not one of them comes back! Have the Benchers decided to sternly limit the numbers of the Profession? Perhaps they are "putting in an execution." Just thinking of escape, when my name called out. March up to Table, determined not to perish without a spirited resistance.
To complete the idea of its being an Execution, here is the Chaplain! Will he say a "few last words" to the culprit—myself—prior to my being pinioned?
As matter of fact, Bencher at head of Table (portly old gentleman, who looks as if he might be described as a "bottle-a-day-of-port-ly" old gentleman) shakes hands, coldly, and that's all. Not even a Queen's Shilling given me, as I am conducted off to another table close by.
Mystery of disappearance of other candidates explained. Here they are—all at this table—"all silent, and all called"! It seems that this is the Barristers' part of the Hall, other the Students'.
Ceremony not over yet. After dinner we are invited, all twenty, to dessert and wine with the Benchers—or rather, at the Benchers' expense, because we don't really see and chat with these great men, only a single representative, who presides at table in a long bare room downstairs, resembling a cellar. Benchers' own Common-room above. Why don't they invite us up there? Bencher, who has come down to preside over this entertainment, has a rather forbidding air about him. Seems to be thinking—"I don't care much for this sort of function. Stupid old custom. But must keep it up, I suppose, for good of Inn; and Benchers (hang them!) have deputed me to take head of the table to-night—probably because I look so desperately lively."
There is a sort of "disinterred liveliness" (to quote Bishop WILBERFORCE) about him, after all. Tries to joke. No doubt regards us all as a pack of fools to join over-crowded profession—still, as we are here, he will try and forget that, in a few years, the majority of us will probably be starving.
After an interval, Bored Bencher thinks it necessary to rise and make little speech. Assures us (Query—hyprocrisy?) that we are all extremely likely to attain to high positions at the Bar. Says something feebly humorous about Woolsack. Bad taste, because we can't all sit on Woolsack at once; and mention of it excites feelings of emulation, almost of animosity, towards other new-fledged Barristers. I am conscious, for instance, of distinct repulsion towards man on my right, who is cracking nuts, and who must be a son or nephew of our Chairman, judging by the familiarity with which he treats latter. Probably his uncle will flood him with briefs—and that will be called "making his own way in the world." Pshaw!
Wine-and-dessert entertainment only lasts an hour. Forbidding Bencher evidently feels that an hour is as much as he can possibly stand. So we all depart, except the favoured nephew (or son), who, as I suspect, "remains to prey" on his uncle (or father), and probably to be invited in to the real feast which no doubt the Inn worthies are enjoying upstairs.
Next morning meet a legal friend, who asks, "When are you to be presented at Court?"
"Presented at Court?"—I ask in surprise.
"Yes—Court of Queen's Bench—ha! ha! You'll have to go one of these days in wig and gown to the Q.B.D., and inscribe your name in a big book, and bow to the Judges, and come out."
"What's the good of doing that?" I want to know.
"None whatever. An old custom, that's all. A sort of legal fiction, you know." (Query—If a Queen's Counsel writes a novel, isn't that a real legal fiction?) "You'll feel rather like a little boy going to a new school. Judges look at you with an air of 'I say, you new feller, what's your name? Where do you come from? What House are you in?—then a good kick. They can't kick you, so they glare at you instead. Interesting ceremony. Ta, ta!"
It turns out as my friend says. But previously there is the other little formality of purchasing the trailing garments of the Profession. Go to a wig-and-gown-maker near the Law Courts. Ask to see different kinds of wigs.
"We only make one kind," replies the wig-man, pityingly. "The Patent Ventilating Anticalvitium. You'll find it as light as a feather, almost. Made of superfine 'orse-'air." He says this as if he never got his material from anything below the value of a Derby Winner.
"Why do you call it the Anticalvitium?" I ask.
"Because it don't make the 'air fall off, Sir, as all other wigs do."
Do they? Another objection to the profession. Wish I had known this before I began to grind for the Bar Exam. Wig-man measures my head.
"Rather large size, Sir," he remarks. Says it as if I must have water on the brain at the very least. "Middle Temple, I suppose?"—he queries. Why? Somehow it would sound more flattering if he had supposed Inner Temple, instead of Middle. Wonder if I shall ever be described as an "Outer barrister, of the Inner Temple, with Middling abilities." Is there a special cut of face belonging to the Inner Temple, another for the Middle (there is a "middle cut" in salmon, why not in the law?) and a third for Lincoln's Inn?
Find, while I am meditating these problems, that I have been "suited" with a gown, also with a stock of ridiculous little linen flaps, which are called "bands." Think about "forbidding the bands," but don't know how to.