folly of exerting himself. They wrote out
his probationary exercise for him, and never
expected him even to take the trouble of
reading it through when it was written.
They invited him, with seven other choice
spirits as lazy as himself, to come and be
called to the bar, while they were sitting over
their wine and fruit after dinner. They put
his oaths of allegiance, and his dreadful official
denunciations of the Pope and the
Pretender so gently into his mouth, that he
hardly knew how the words got there.
They wheeled all their chairs softly round
from the table, and sat surveying the young
barristers with their backs to their bottles,
rather than stand up, or adjourn to hear the
exercises read. And when Mr. Idle and the
seven unlabouring neophytes, ranged in
order, as a class, with their backs
considerately placed against a screen, had
begun, in rotation, to read the exercises which
they had not written, even then, each
Bencher, true to the great lazy principle of
the whole proceeding, stopped each neophyte
before he had stammered through his first
line, and bowed to him, and told him politely
that he was a barrister from that moment.
This was all the ceremony. It was followed by
a social supper, and by the presentation, in
accordance with ancient custom, of a pound
of sweetmeats and a bottle of Madeira,
offered in the way of needful refreshment,
by each grateful neophyte to each beneficent
Bencher. It may seem inconceivable that
Thomas should ever have forgotten the great
do-nothing principle instilled by such a
ceremony as this; but it is, nevertheless, true,
that certain designing students of industrious
habits found him out, took advantage of his
easy humour, persuaded him that it was
discreditable to be a barrister and to know
nothing whatever about the law, and lured
him, by the force of their own evil example,
into a conveyancer's chambers, to make up
for lost time, and to qualify himself for practice
at the Bar. After a fortnight of self-
delusion, the curtain fell from his eyes; heresumed his natural character, and shut up
his books. But the retribution which had
hitherto always followed his little casual
errors of industry followed them still. He
could get away from the conveyancer's
chambers, but he could not get away from one of
the pupils, who had taken a fancy to him,—a
tall, serious, raw-boned, hard-working,
disputatious pupil, with ideas of his own about
reforming the Law of Real Property, who has
been the scourge of Mr. Idle's existence ever
since the fatal day when he fell into the
mistake of attempting to study the law.
Before that time his friends were all sociable
idlers like himself. Since that time the
burden of bearing with a hard-working young man
has become part of his lot in life. Go where
he will now, he can never feel certain that
the raw-boned pupil is not affectionately
waiting for him round a corner, to tell him a
little more about the Law of Real Property,
Suffer as he may under the infliction, he can
never complain, for he must always remember,
with unavailing regret, that he has his
own thoughtless industry to thank for first
exposing him to the great social calamity o!
knowing a bore.

These events of his past life, with the
significant results that they brought about,
pass drowsily through Thomas Idle's memory,
while he lies alone on the sofa at Allonby
and elsewhere, dreaming away the time
which his fellow-apprentice gets through so
actively out of doors. Remembering the
lesson of laziness which his past disasters
teach, and bearing in mind also the fact that
he is crippled in one leg because he exerted
himself to go up a mountain, when he ought
to have known that his proper course of
conduct was to stop at the bottom of it, he holds
now, and will for the future firmly continue
to hold, by his new resolution never to be
industrious again, on any pretence whatever,
for the rest of his life. The physical results
of his accident have been related in a previous
chapter. The moral results now stand on
record; and, with the enumeration of these,
that part of the present narrative which is
occupied by the Episode of The Sprained
Ankle may now perhaps be considered, in all
its aspects, as finished and complete.

"How do you propose that we get through,
this present afternoon and evening?"
demanded Thomas Idle, after two or three
hours of the foregoing reflections at
Allonby.

Mr. Goodchild faultered, looked out of
window, looked in again, and said, as he had
so often said before, " There is the sea, and
here are the shrimps;—let us eat 'em!"

But, the wise donkey was at that moment
in the act of bolting: not with the irresolution
of his previous efforts which had been
wanting in sustained force of character, but
with real vigor of purpose: shaking the dust
off his mane and hind-feet at Allonby, and
tearing away from it, as if he had nobly made
up his mind that he never would be taken
alive. At sight of this inspiring spectacle,
which was visible from his sofa, Thomas Idle
stretched his neck and dwelt upon it
rapturously.

"Francis Goodchild," he then said, turning
to his companion with a solemn air, " this is
a delightful little Inn, excellently kept by
the most comfortable of landladies and the
most attentive of landlords, but—the
donkey's right!"

"The words, " There is the sea, and here
are the—," again trembled on the lips of
Goodchild, unaccompanied however by any
sound.

"Let us instantly pack the portmanteaus,"
said Thomas Idle, " pay the bill, and order a
fly out, with instructions to the driver to
follow the donkey!"

Mr. Goodchild, who had only wanted