Interior, meaner and much dirtier. Speak to Usher. Usher most polite. Glad, that at any rate, they do know how to treat important Witnesses. Am assured I shall have a seat "close to the Judge." Produce my witness-summons. Demeanour of Usher suddenly changes. I shall have to go to the "Witnesses' Waiting-room in the old Court." Where's that? He doesn't know. I'd better ask a Policeman. It now flashes across me that Usher mistook me for a wealthy, and probably generous spectator, and thought when I was fumbling in my pocket for my summons, I was looking for half-a-crown for him! Depressing.
Policeman leaves me in a dark, draughty passage, with a bench on each side. "But where is the waiting-room?" I ask an attendant. "This is the waiting-room," he replies. More like the Black Hole. Was it wise of me to give information to the Police?
Two Days later.—They crammed forty Witnesses into that passage! No seats for half of them. We had one chair, and Usher took it away "as a lady wanted it in Court." Lady no doubt a spectator—did she hunt in her pocket for half-a-crown? Anyhow, after two days in the passage, I have just given my evidence in Court, with fearful cold on my lungs, owing to the draught. Very hoarse. Ordered by Judge, sternly, to "speak up." Conscious that I looked a wretched object. Jury regarded me with evident suspicion. Severely cross-examined. Mentioned to Judge about my windows being smashed, &c.; could I receive anything for it? "Oh, dear no," replied the Judge; "we never reward Witnesses." Amusement in Court—at my expense. In fact, the course of Justice generally seems to be altogether at my expense. Home in a cab and a fever. Find ten more threatening letters, and an infernal machine under area-steps. Go to bed. Doctor says I am in for pneumonia and bronchitis, he thinks. Tells me I am thoroughly run down, and asks me, "What I've been doing to reduce myself to this state?" I reply that, "I have been assisting the course of Justice." Doctor shrugs his shoulders, and I hear him distinctly mutter, "More fool you!" I agree with Doctor, cordially. Am quite certain now that it was unwise to tell Police that I could identify those criminals. If this is the way in which Witnesses are treated, let Justice in future assist itself!
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
My Baronite has been reading Mona Maclean, Medical Student. (Blackwood.) "It is," he tells me, "a Novel with a purpose—no recommendation for a novel, more especially when the purpose selected is that of demonstrating the indispensability of women-doctors." Happily Graham Travers, as the author (being evidently a woman) calls herself, is lured from her fell design. There is a chapter or two of talk among the girls in the dissecting-room and the chemical laboratory, with much about the "spheno-maxillary fossa," the "dorsalis pedis," and the general whereabouts of "Scarpa's triangle." But these can be skipped, and the reader may get into the company of Mona Maclean when she is less erudite, and more womanly. When not dissecting the "plantar arch," Mona is a bright, fearless, clever girl, with a breezy manner, refreshing to all admitted to her company. The episode of her shopkeeping experience is admirably told, and affords the author abundant and varied opportunity of exercising her gift of drawing character. Mona Maclean is, apparently, a first effort at novel-writing. The workmanship improves up to the end of the third volume; and Miss Travers' next book will be better still.
To Mr. J. Fisher Unwin comes the happy thought of issuing, in a neatly-packed box, the whole twenty volumes of the Pseudonym Library—and a very acceptable Christmas-Box it will make. The volumes, with their odd, oblong shape, are delightful to hold; the type is good, and the excellence of the literary matter is remarkably well kept up over the already long series. Mr. Unwin promises fresh volumes, introducing to the British public Finnish and Danish authors, or Danish first, and the others to Finnish.
See how these Poets love one another! How touching is the dedication of Alfred Austin's latest volume to George Meredith! May both live long and prosper, is the hearty wish of their friend,
The Baron De Book-Worms.