confirmed this by certificate. Compton opposed,
but the judge would hardly hear him, and
postponed the trial as a matter of course: this
carried it over the sittings into next term.
Alfred groaned, but bore it patiently; not so
Doctor Sampson: he raged against secret
tribunals: "See how men deteriorate the moment
they get out of the full light of publeecity.
What English judge, sitting in the light of Shorthand,
would admit 'Jack swears that Gill says'
for legal evidence. Speers has sworn to no facks.
Heathfield has sworn to no facks but th' existence
of Speers's hearsay. They are a couple o'
lyres. I'll bet ye ten pounds t' a shilling Speers
is as well as I'm."

Mr. Compton quietly reminded him there was
a direct statement—the French doctor's certificate.

"A medical certificut!" shrieked Sampson,
amazed. "Mai—dearr—sirr, a medical certificut
is just an article o' commerce—like an attorney's
conscience. Gimme a guinea and I'll get
you sworn sick, diseased, disabled, or dead this
minute, whichever you like best."

"Come, doctor, don't fly off: you said you'd
bet ten pounds to a shilling Speers is not an
invalid at all. I say done."

"Done."

"How will you find out?"

"How? Why set the thief-takers on 'um, to
be sure."

He wrote off to the prefect of police at
Boulogne, and in four days received an answer,
headed "Information in the interest of families."
The prefect informed him there had been no railway
accident: but that the Sieur Speers, English
subject, had really hurt his leg getting out of a
railway carriage six weeks ago, and had kept his
room some days; but he had been cured some
weeks, and going about his business, and made
an excursion to Paris.

On this Compton offered him the shilling. But
he declined to take it. "The lie was self-
evident," said he: "and here's a judge wouldn't
see't, and an attorney couldn't. Been all their
lives sifting evidence too. Oh the darkness of
the professional mind!"

The next term came. Mr. Compton delivered
the briefs and fees, subpœnaed the witnesses,
&c., and Alfred came up with a good heart to
get his stigma removed by twelve honest men in
the light of day; but first one case was taken out
of its order and put before him, then another,
till term wore near an end. Then Messrs.
Heathfield applied to another judge of the court
for a postponement. Mr. Richard Hardie, plaintiff's
father, a most essential witness, was ill at
Clare-court. Medical certificate and letter herewith.

Compton opposed. Now this judge was a
keen and honourable lawyer, with a lofty hatred
of all professional tricks. He heard the two
attorneys, and delivered himself to this effect,
only of course in better legal phrase: "I shall
make no order. The defendant has been here
before on a doubtful affidavit. You know, Mr.
Heathfield, juries in these cases go by the
plaintiff's evidence, and his conduct under cross-
examination. And I think it would not be just
nor humane to keep this plaintiff in suspense, and
civiliter mortuum, any longer. You can take out
a commission to examine Richard Hardie."

To this Mr. Compton nailed him, but the
commission took time; and while it was pending,
Mr. Heathfield went to another judge with
another disabled witness; Peggy Black. That naïve
personage was nursing her deceased sister's
children—in an affidavit: and they had
scarlatina—surgeon's certificate to that effect. Compton
opposed, and pointed out the blot. "You
don't want the children in the witness-box," said
he: "and we are not to be robbed of our trial
because one of your witnesses prefers nursing
other people's children to facing the witness-
box."

The judge nodded assent. "I make no order,"
said he.

Mr. Heathfield went out from his presence
and sent a message by telegraph to Peggy Black.
"You must have Scar. yourself, and telegraph
the same at once, certificate by post."

The accommodating maiden telegraphed back
that she had unfortunately taken scarlatina of
the children: medical certificate to follow by
post. Four judges out of the five were now
awake to the move. But Mr. Heathfield
tinkered the hole in his late affidavit with Peggy's
telegram, and slipped down to Westminster to the
chief judge of the court, who had had no
opportunity of watching the growth and dissemination
of disease among defendant's witnesses. Compton
fought this time by counsel and with a powerful
affidavit. But luck was against him. The judge
had risen to go home: he listened standing;
Compton's counsel was feeble; did not feel the
wrong: how could he? lawyers fatten by delays
of justice, as physicians do by tardy cure. The
postponement was granted.

Alfred cursed them all, and his own folly in
believing that an alleged lunatic would be
allowed fair play at Westminster or anywhere
else. Compton took snuff, and Sampson
appealed to the press again. He wrote a long
letter exposing with fearless irony the postponement
swindle as it had been worked in Hardie v.
Hardie: and wound up with this fiery peroration:

"This Englishman sues not merely for damages,
but to recover lost rights dearer far than money,
of which he says he has been unjustly robbed;
his right to walk in daylight on the soil of his
native land without being seized, and tied up for
life like a nigger or a dog; his footing in society;
a chance to earn his bread; and a place among
mankind: ay, among mankind; for a lunatic is
an animal in the law's eye and society's, and an
alleged lunatic is a lunatic till a jury clears him.

"I appeal to you, gentlemen, is not such a
suitor sacred in all wise and good men's minds?
Is he not defendant as well as plaintiff? Why
his stake is enormous compared with the nominal