JOURNAL OF A ROLLING STONE.
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.