Having partially poured the cat from my bag already into his sympathetic and receptive bosom, I decided to confide to him my hard case in its entirety, and so made him a secret sign that I desired some private confabulations at his earliest conveniency, which he observing, after the termination of the match, came towards the remote bench whereon I was forlornly moping, and sat down kindly by my side.
This young Allbutt-Innett, I am to mention here, had only just missed succeeding in the passing of Bar Exam owing to the inveterate malignancy of his stars and lack of a more industrial temperament; but from the coolness of his cheek, and complete man-of-the-worldliness, is a most judicious and tip-top adviser to friends in tight places.
Experto crede, for, when he had heard the latest particulars of my shocking imbroglio, he promptly gave me the excellent advice that I was to consult a solicitor; strongly recommending a Mr Sidney Smartle, who was a former schoolmate of his own, and a good thundering chap, and who (he thought) was not so overburdened as yet by legal business that he could not find time for working the oracle on my behalf.
"And look here, Jab," he added (he has sometimes 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 Jalpanybhoy 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 adolescent than senile in physical appearance I was vastly impressed by the offhanded cocksurety of his manner.
My friend Howard introduced me, and exhibited my doleful predicament in the shell of a nut, whereupon Mr Smartle jauntily pronounced it to be the common garden breach of promise, but that we had better all repair to the First Avenue Hotel and lunch, and talk the affair over afterwards.
Which we did in the smoking-room after lunch, with coffee, liqueurs, and cigars, &c., for which I had to pay, as a Tommy Dod, and the odd man out of pocket.
Mr Smartle, after listening attentively to my narrative, said that I certainly seemed to him to have let myself into the deuced cavity of a hole by so publicly proclaiming my engagement, but that my status as an oriental foreigner, and the fact I had asserted—viz., that my promise was extorted from me by compulsion and sheer physical funkiness—might pull me through, unless the plaintiff were of superlative loveliness (which, fortunately, is by no means the case).