After an interval, Bored Bencher thinks it necessary to rise and make little speech. Assures us (Query—hyprocrisy?) that we are all extremely likely to attain to high positions at the Bar. Says something feebly humorous about Woolsack. Bad taste, because we can't all sit on Woolsack at once; and mention of it excites feelings of emulation, almost of animosity, towards other new-fledged Barristers. I am conscious, for instance, of distinct repulsion towards man on my right, who is cracking nuts, and who must be a son or nephew of our Chairman, judging by the familiarity with which he treats latter. Probably his uncle will flood him with briefs—and that will be called "making his own way in the world." Pshaw!
Wine-and-dessert entertainment only lasts an hour. Forbidding Bencher evidently feels that an hour is as much as he can possibly stand. So we all depart, except the favoured nephew (or son), who, as I suspect, "remains to prey" on his uncle (or father), and probably to be invited in to the real feast which no doubt the Inn worthies are enjoying upstairs.
Next morning meet a legal friend, who asks, "When are you to be presented at Court?"
"Presented at Court?"—I ask in surprise.
"Yes—Court of Queen's Bench—ha! ha! You'll have to go one of these days in wig and gown to the Q.B.D., and inscribe your name in a big book, and bow to the Judges, and come out."
"What's the good of doing that?" I want to know.
"None whatever. An old custom, that's all. A sort of legal fiction, you know." (Query—If a Queen's Counsel writes a novel, isn't that a real legal fiction?) "You'll feel rather like a little boy going to a new school. Judges look at you with an air of 'I say, you new feller, what's your name? Where do you come from? What House are you in?—then a good kick. They can't kick you, so they glare at you instead. Interesting ceremony. Ta, ta!"
It turns out as my friend says. But previously there is the other little formality of purchasing the trailing garments of the Profession. Go to a wig-and-gown-maker near the Law Courts. Ask to see different kinds of wigs.
"We only make one kind," replies the wig-man, pityingly. "The Patent Ventilating Anticalvitium. You'll find it as light as a feather, almost. Made of superfine 'orse-'air." He says this as if he never got his material from anything below the value of a Derby Winner.
"Why do you call it the Anticalvitium?" I ask.