"You see this, Mr. ——?"
"I do, my lord," said the advocate.
"Well, it just goes in here and comes out there!" and his lordship smiled with the hilarity of a Judge who thinks he has actually said a good thing.
The advocate looked and smiled not likewise, but a good deal more wise. Then the expression of his face changed to one of contempt.
"I do not doubt it, my lord," said he. "What is there to prevent it?"
The learned judge sat immovable, and looked—like a judicial—wit.
I was now getting on so well in my profession that in the minds of many of the unsuccessful there was a natural feeling of disappointment. Why one man should succeed and a dozen fail has ever been an unsolved problem at the Bar, and ever will be. But the curious part of this natural law is that it manifests itself in the most unexpected manner.
Coming one day from a County Court, where I had had a successful day, and humming a little tune, whom should I meet but my friend Morgan ——. He was a very pleasant man, what is called a nice man, of a quiet, religious turn of mind, and nobody was ever more painstaking to push himself along. He was a great stickler for a man's doing his duty, and was possessed with the idea that, getting on as I was, it was my duty to refuse to take a brief in the County Court.
Coming up to me on the occasion I refer to, Morgan said, "What, you here, Hawkins! I believe you'd take a brief before the devil in h——."
I was quite taken aback for the moment by the use of such language. If he had not been so religious a man, perhaps I should not have felt it so much; as it was, I could hardly fetch my breath.