'No,' said Trottman; 'it is not law. It is reform.'

'It ought to be law. As an advocate, I am a man who hire out my knowledge and talents for the avowed purpose of doing justice; and am to consider neither plaintiff nor defendant, but justice only. Otherwise, I should certainly be the vilest of rascals!'

'Heyday!' thundered Stradling: and, after a pause, added—'It is my opinion, those words are liable to a prosecution, Mr. Trevor; and, by G——, if you were to be cast in any one of our Courts for them, it would be no fault either of the bench or the bar if the sentence of the law, which you are defaming, did not shut you up for life!'

'My friend Trevor mistakes the nature of the profession he is studying,' added Trottman. 'He forgets that the question before a Court is not, what is this, that, or the other; which he may think proper to call justice; but, what is the law?'

'To be sure, sir;' continued Stradling. 'It is that which, as a lawyer, you must attend to; and that only.'

'I will cite you an example,' said Trottman.

'A was a gentleman of great landed property. B was an impertinent beggarly kind of sturdy fellow, his neighbour. A had an estate in the county of —— that lay in a ring-fence: a meadow of nine acres excepted, which belonged to B. This meadow it was convenient for A to purchase; and he sent his steward, who was an attorney, to make proposals. B rejected them. The steward advised A to buy the estate that belonged to C, but that was farmed by B. The advice was followed. The lease of B expired the following year; and a new one was denied by A, unless B would sell his meadow. B consented. A bought the meadow, but determined to have his revenge. For this purpose A refused payment, and provoked B to commence an action. The law he knew very well was on the side of B: but that was of little consequence. Plaintiff B brought his action in Trinity Term. Defendant A pleaded a sham plea: asserted plaintiff had been paid for his meadow, by a firkin of butter: [All a lie, you know.] long vacation was thus got over, and next term defendant files a bill in Chancery, to stay proceedings at law. Plaintiff B files his answer, and gets the injunction dissolved: but A had his writ ready and became plaintiff in error, carried it through all the Courts: from K.B. to the Exchequer-chamber; and from the Exchequer-chamber, as A very well knew that B had no more money, A brought error into Parliament; by which B was obliged to drop proceedings. His attorney, of course, would not stir a step further; and the fool was ruined. He was afterward arrested by his attorney for payment of bill in arrear; and he now lies in prison, on the debtors'-side of Newgate.'

'How you stare, Mr. Trevor!' added Stradling. 'Every word true. We all know a great lord who has carried I cannot tell how many such causes.'

'And were the judges,' said I, 'acquainted with the whole of these proceedings?'

'How could they be ignorant of them? Judgment had passed against defendant A in all the Courts.'