and with a general expression of resolute self-
denial and stern indignation on our faces, we
relapse into solemnity.

A few minutes elapse, during which interval,
having nothing else to do, we put the weather
upon trial, and find from the evidence before us
that it is not guilty of turning out a wet afternoon;
a bill is then sent up from below. It is
delivered to our foreman, who becomes absorbed
in its contents, and as he evidently considers
this a subject for profound study, we come to
the conclusion that our sharpest powers of
investigation will be put to a rigid test. As I am
near enough to overlook the paper that has been
handed to our great chief, I perceive that he is
holding it upside down; and, therefore, with
some trepidation, as if I were making the boldest
of corrections, I timidly suggest that it will be
understood more easily if read in the usual way.
The clerk of the court comes to the foreman's
assistance, and whispers that he had better
read it aloud: whereupon our foreman, looking
upon the puzzling paper and then upon
ourselves, explains that the arts of reading and
writing were not included in the rudiments of
his education. We are rather startled by this
intelligence, but learning on the authority of the
official who comes to our aid, that if our foreman
can sign his name in any hieroglyphical
character, he may still hold his position as
presiding over our investigations, we agree to
transfer the reading portion of his duty to another
gentleman. We are accordingly enlightened by
the individual upon whom this task has devolved
as to the indictment before us, and we find that
it charges William Grubbens with feloniously
taking three feet of leaden pipe from Boxley
Church. We demand evidence of the most
conclusive kind, and the most conclusive
evidence is instantly forthcoming. There is the
boy who saw him do it, and who told him it was
wrong, and there is the boy who saw him take it
away and didn't know it was wrong, and there
is the policeman who (from information he
received) overtook the appropriator and found him
with the three feet of leaden pipe in his hand.
Nevertheless, there is one resolute investigator
among us who demands more. We have had no
evidence of the existence of Boxley Church itself,
and, to make the case complete, he thinks
decided proofs on that head ought to be
forthcoming.

After some persuasion he waives the objection,
and we return a true bill. We conscientiously
pursue a similarly rigorous investigation
through half a dozen more cases; having up
every witness we can get hold of, and only
requiring official correction when we mistake the
second count for the third count, and mix up all
the other counts together. Nevertheless, we
improve fast, and display absolute forensic
acumen in our elaborate cross-examination of
witnesses, whom we will not let off on any plea till
we have put them under the air-pump of our
interrogations, and have exhausted them of all
particulars touching their birth, parentage, and
social condition. Having consumed some hours
in this way, and having aggravated the petty
jury below by the lingering reluctance with
which we allow the cases to drop into their
hands, our official extricator slides in at the
door, with a grinning remark that we have
given ourselves much unnecessary trouble, as
all the prisoners have pleaded guilty. However,
we are not to be turned aside from the path of
duty, and we go on asking questions with a
pertinacity that would do credit to a jury
composed of Pinnock's Catechisms.

As the day wears on, and the setting sun
begins to throw longer shadows of ourselves
upon the wall, I perceive that the most inveterate
interrogators are getting subdued into
silence. On my left I find one who has mildly
intoxicated himself with peppermint lozenges,
indulging in such dreams of bliss as that
carminative confection may inspire. Others are
visibly oppressed by the drowsy repetition of
oath-taking gone through by a long succession
of witnesses, and by their monotonous similarity
of statement. To overcome our lethargy, the
more wakeful of us dive down to the court
below in the intervals when we are waiting for
fresh indictments, and watch the fruits of our
labours ripening under the glass dome, where
the bees are buzzing with a more sonorous and
sleepy hum than ever. We have just enough
daylight to read the last indictment when we
get it, and have the agreeable satisfaction of
varying the routine of our proceedings by
ignoring the bill, which we fix upon the extremity
of a long rake, and thus deliver from the gallery
to the intelligent chairman below. With infinite
gratification we then hear him say, " Gentlemen
of the Grand Jury, the court has much pleasure
in discharging you, and the county thanks you
for your services." In another moment we are
off upon our several private missions, which
would seem chiefly to be of a gastronomic kind,
and through the deepening twilight I see my
juridical brethren, as I pass towards the railway
station, empanelled in the snug boxes of
the nearest hotel, making the waiter solemnly
depose what is his belief of the state of the
larder, and prepared to "thoroughly try and
investigate, according to the best of their ability,
everything that shall be brought before them."

NEW WORK
BY SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON.
NEXT WEEK
Will be continued (to be completed in six months)
A STRANGE STORY,
BY THE
AUTHOR OF "MY NOVEL," " RIENZI," &c. &c.