—and when he sat down, alarm was in the
opposite attorney's face, and he had begun to
look anxiously for his counsel.

Mr. Tillotson also had been troubled at the
absence of Mr. Cobham. The tender junior was
in a sort of fever. Their lordships had adjourned
for ten minutes, and clerks were going in all
directions looking for Mr. Cobham. But a
messenger from his house had come to the court, and
gave to the solicitor a note, and that gentleman,
in a flutter of annoyance, put it into Mr. Tillotson's
hands, with a "There, we're done!" Mr.
Cobham had been taken ill in the night with an
inflammation, was something better now, but
daren't get out of bed for a week or more.

The state of the tender junior was pitiable.
"What can I do?" he said. "I never made
an argument in my life. I have only been
called two years. The whole thing is in a
muddle."

"Just try and ask them to put it off. He
won't, I know, but——"

"Now, Mr.—er"—the Chief Justice was
saying, looking about, "the other—er—side."

The falling tones of the tender junior were
then heard, stating his leader's misfortune, the
serious character of the case, and bleating a
request that their l'dships would be so kind and
indulgent as to, &c.

"Ah! that we never do," said his lordship, with
a smile, "except in extreme cases. You know
our practice here. If all the counsel were ill, or
something like what is known to the Law as the
act of God, had interposed, it would be a different
thing!"

"But, my lord," implored the junior——

"We must go on," said his lordship. "We
have you here, Mr.—er"—and his lordship paused
a second, in the view that some one would supply
him with the name, which, however, no one
knew. "I have no doubt you will be able to
assist the court very materially."

Thus was this tender junior launched. How
the unhappy legal babe—for he was no more—
hobbled and staggered, and floundered, and went
back again, and got into the marshes and
morasses of a hopeless country—how he was
helped out, all wet and bemired, by a charitable
judge, who gave him his hand, thus: "As I take
it, Mr.—er"—with the best intentions, he had
to pause a second also—"what you are contending
for is this," putting a view the junior never
dreamed of, nor could understand, but which he
assented to with a wild eagerness, and then
floundered back into his bog. How the Chief
Justice, losing patience, became sarcastic, and
when the junior said it was laid down in
"Taylor" that secondary evidence of a letter,
which was in existence, could not be received,
and that he would presently find the passage for
their lordships, he averred that so far the court
was with him—all this and much more may be
conceived.

The other counsel was not called upon after
"Mr. Bidder's exhaustive argument." The Chief
Justice said it was not necessary, and the court
adjourned to give judgment on a future, day.
"We're done," said the solicitor to Mr. Tillotson,
as he got up his papers—"smashed." The
miserable junior went home thinking of suicide,
passed a wretched night, saying to himself he
was ruined for ever, and could never show his
face, took refuge in desperate study, got another
chance, and ten years later was that efficient
junior, Mr. Mounsey, whose name we meet with
so often in the reports in the familiar parenthesis
("with him Mounsey").

On the future day the court met to give
judgment, "polishing off a lot of cases together," as
an irreverent barrister said. The court was,
however, divided on the question. The charitable
judge had been at the pains of "making up"
the whole case for himself, without the aid of the
junior, a few of the other judges had views of
their own, and the Samaritan judge delivered an
elaborate judgment in favour of the appellant.
Some of the judges were absent, not having
heard the whole argument, but the Chief Justice,
who held that Bidder, a class fellow of his own
at college, was bound up with the constitutional
law of the country, gave his judgment last, and
for "the respondent Ross." Even then the colour
was made to rush violently to the cheeks of the
miserable junior (several times during the past
few nights on the point of getting up to look for
his razors), by the Chief Justice saying that "the
court, by an unhappy fatality, had not been
assisted as much as it might have been, and the
case, he might so say, had been overweighted on
one side." At which pleasant conceit a flutter of
obsequious hilarity ran round the barristerial
amphitheatre. By a narrow majority of two
the appeal was dismissed. Still, this did not
finally dispose of the matter, for, as the Chief
Justice remarked, the appellant could still take
his case to a yet higher court, where it would no
doubt receive all the consideration it merited at
the hands of that high tribunal; and where, if
there was anything faulty in their decision, it
would no doubt be set right. Then, with an
air of relief, each judge put away the papers in
the now defunct case, and the crier called a new
one very lustily.

CHAPTER IV. FURTHER DOUBTS.

DURING the days between argument and
judgment, little Mrs. Tillotson had been observed to
grow very anxious and troubled, and the curious
wistful look in her face intensified. Mr. Tillotson,
who every day was finding himself more and
more incapable of understanding or following her
curious moods, was grieved to see this, as he
always understood that she was perfectly
indifferent to the result of the suit. Now she was
almost pettishly anxious. But he could give her
no comfort. The faithful captain saw this also,
and was greatly mystified by it. But he was
not at a loss for comfort. "Why, the other side
hasn't a leg to stand on, my dear. A very
experienced counsel that I know told me so. I
know I wish I was as sure of my salvation. I