which of course I can't mention, but I may say
that there were no more letters in his signature
than there would have been in that of Paul
Pry; so naturally our friend was very much
puzzled, and found it very difficult to form the
theory of a handwriting with so little foundation
to go upon. He succeeded, however, tolerably
to his own satisfaction; more so, indeed,
than to that of the cashier to whom he handed
it for payment. This gentleman bestowed one
searching glance upon the draft and another
upon the individual who presented it. This
last was conscious that his severest test had
now come, and may, perhaps, have worn something
of an evasive air.

"' Have the kindness to take a seat for one
moment,' said the cashier, very politely, and
retiring with the cheque in his hand towards a
door leading to one of the inner offices. As he
got to the door, however, he paused for an
instant, doubting whether he wouldn't pay the
draft at once, and not bother the partners about
it, when, looking back to where he had left our
gentleman, he sees him very quietly sneaking
out of the office. That was enough; off goes
the cashier in pursuit, calls to the policeman
who was always at the door, gives St. Aubyn
in charge, and there's an end of it."

"But what was it that had aroused the
suspicions of the cashier? " inquired Mr.
Phipps.

"Well, he doubted about the handwriting.
The look of the cheque was very different from
any he had previously seen coming from the
same quarter, and the sum demanded was so
large that he thought it best not to act upon
his own responsibility."

"Suspicious beast!" muttered the cynic;
"not half so clever as the other chap."

"And you have to get up this man's defence?"
inquired Penmore, with considerable eagerness,

"Yes, sir," replied the attorney, a little
coldly, " it's coming my way."

"Now I'll tell you what, Craft," said Lethwaite,
sitting up in his chair, and thoroughly in
earnest, "you must give our friend Penmore
here a chance as junior."

"Ah, sir," returned the other, quite a different
man now from the genial story-teller of a
few minutes since, " I couldn't do it."

"Well, but why couldn't you do it?"

"Why, to begin with, Mr. Lethwaite, you
see the case is, between friends, not a good one,
and every one engaged by me must be a person
of tried ability and considerable experience."

"How is a man to get experience," pleaded
Gilbert, taking up his own cause, " unless somebody
will trust him to begin with?"

"Yes, that's very true, sir," replied the other,
"but this is not the sort of case to begin with.
The slightest oversight, the least omission to
push an advantage, would be fatal."

"Ticklish defence, I should say, very ticklish,"
wheezed Jeffrey the silent.

"Well, I think this is an unfriendly act on
your part, Craft," said Lethwaite, speaking
quite in earnest.

"Now, don't you be hard upon me, Mr. Lethwaite,"
replied the attorney. " I've got my
clients to satisfy, remember, in the choice of
the barristers who are to represent their interests,
and they like well-known names."

"Don't press it, Lethwaite," said Gilbert,
rather drearily. " Mr. Craft would rather not
try the experiment, evidently."

"Yes, but I do press it, and I think it's very
unfriendly."

"Well, then, look here, Mr. Lethwaite," Mr.
Craft broke out, desperately; "if you must
know, there's another reason."

"And what's that ?"

The attorney hesitated a little, and then he
blurted it out all the more roughly that he was
shy of what he had to say.

"Why, the fact is, sir, that your friend speaks
with a foreign accent, as you must have observed,
and that would go very much against him in an
English court of justice."

Few things could have been more awkward
than an announcement such as this. It was
awkwardly said too, and an unpleasant silence
followed the attorney's speech. As for Penmore
himself, he had been prepared for it; it was not
the first allusion that had been made to that
disaster, which was the result of his bringing-up.
His friend Lethwaite felt it almost worse than
Gilbert did. He was a great partisan.

"I never heard such nonsense in my life," he
said. " Mr. Penmore is an Englishman by birth,
has an English name, and speaks the language
as well as I do. The whole question is about
a trifling accent, a matter of pronunciation,
which will improve every day. I dare say he
knows the grammar of the language better than
you do, Mr. Craft, and I'm sure he knows it
better than I do."

"Very likely," retorted Craft, "but that's not
the question. The grammar ain't much, as we
see every day in letters to the newspapers, and
in Queen's speeches, and the like. Juries don't
mind a few faults in grammar, but a foreign
accent would set them against a man, and against
his argument, directly."

"Nonsense," retorted the partisan. " What
do you say, Mr. Phipps?"

"I am afraid," replied that polite gentleman,
"that it will be indispensably necessary for me
to give it against you. In England there is a
most powerful conviction in the public mind
that foreigners are, as a race — shall I say bamboozlers?
I really am unable to think of a
better word at the moment — bamboozlers. And
if they were to hear your friend speaking with
a foreign accent, they would not pause to consider
whether he might or might not be of
English extraction and birth, but would say at
once, ' Now we are going to be bamboozled.'"

"The fact is, again," continued Mr. Craft,
"that a court of justice is a very queer concern.
Once now, for instance, give them a chance of
laughing — "

"Of laughing?" cried Lethwaite.

"Of laughing?" echoed Gilbert, savagely.

"Yes, gentlemen, I'm obliged to say it. They