the other side may have a stronger; that, even
if we gain a verdict, we may be beaten in the
long run by a point of law and a new trial.
"And you know what casuists we lawyers are,"
simpers Rubasore, Q.C., with deprecatory shrug.
So the case is settled, and I get my guinea for
nothing. Who shall accuse the bar, after this,
of a disposition towards fomenting litigation
and engendering strife? I wonder if ever I could
be a peacemaker. Yes; I think I could, if I
were a Q.C. in good practice, with my fee paid
beforehand. I think I should be glad to patch
up little differences without going into court, if
I wanted to get away early to a dinner at
Richmond, or if my cob were waiting to take me for
an airing, or if I had rather a heavy case coming
on in the King's Bench in half an hour, which
rendered this particular one in the Common
Pleas somewhat of a bore.

I can't say that I am much the better for the
gratuitous guineas I have had as compensation
for the writ of subpœna; for the stuffed heron is
getting rather shaky about the legs, and at the
sale of my effects will fetch, I apprehend,
something considerably under a crown. But my
wanderings in legal purlieus have not been,
perhaps, wholly barren. I have studied witnesses,
I have marked their ways, made notes of their
demeanour, envisaged their lineaments, and
catalogued their apparel. I have grown at last
—errors excepted, of course—to distinguish
witnesses from other men.

You may tell your witness, first, from the fact
that he is always hungry and thirsty, and that
the voracity with which he partakes of
refreshment is equalled by his cheerful alacrity to be fed.
For, the witness is a creature to be paid, and not
to pay. Nothing edible or potable comes amiss to
him. He is ready for a mutton chop, at ten thirty;
for a quiet crust of bread and cheese and a glass
of old ale—he is very fond of old ale—at noon;
for a substantial "point" steak, a mealy potato
like a ball of flower, a pickled walnut, and a
pint of Allsopp's draught, at one P.M.; for any
number of sandwiches and glasses of sherry
while the managing clerk holds him in whispered
confabulation as to that one point about which
he is to be so very particular in giving his
evidence, and which he either totally forgets, or
makes some transcendental blunder about, before
he has been five minutes in the box. Then, again,
he is ready, when the case is over, for a regular
good dinner washed down by champagne and port
—the last a peculiar rich brown fruity vintage,
like liquid plum-pudding with plenty of brandy in
it: the special growth of the vineyards patronised
by legal hotel-keepers, and which has the curious
property of causing every witness after the second
glass to inform his neighbour in a confidential
hiccup that if it hadn't been for the manner in
which he gave his evidence, the case would have
infallibly broken down. The miscreant Stradlings
would have won the day, and the
noble-hearted Styles—who gives the dinner—would
have been nowhere. It is, in fact, in these legal
hotels that witnesses may literally be said to live
on the fat of the land. They are not proud.
While better viands are getting ready they will
make shift with a basin of mock-turtle, in which
scraps of glutinous parchment appear to have
been boiled in lieu of calves'-head. They will
fill up an odd corner with a quarter of a pork-pie
and half a pint of stout; nay, I have even
seen teetotal witnesses (who are generally
incoherent in the box, and virulently suspected of
intoxication by the judge) punish the plaintiff's
pocket pretty heavily in the way of Banbury
cakes and lemonade. Country witnesses, whose
stomachs are unused to waiting, and to whom
kickshaws are as the idle wind which they
regard not, are not above taking a substantial
lunch from the joint at the Exchequer
dining-rooms; and as for by-drinks, and "quiet
drains," and a cozy pipe and a glass of
something hot till that interminable trial of Hudge
versus Gudge shall give place to the long-expected
case of Stradlings versus Styles, their
name is legion. Of course there are from time
to time stingy plaintiffs, and pauper plaintiffs,
and attorneys who are chary in disbursing costs
out of pocket. In these cases the witnesses
don't live on the fat of the land, and injure the
plaintiff's case accordingly; but there is one
repast they must have by fair means or by foul
—the first being understood that they are paid
for, the second that they pay. They will have
tea. The consumption of that refreshing and
uninebriating beverage does not in the slightest
degree interfere with their appetite for
stimulants; still a witness without his tea is nothing.
He takes it at all times between noon and
five P.M.; but his tea he must and will have:
a complete and perfect tea—not a mere cup of
wishy-washy Souchong, but supplemented by
rounds of toast—the greasier the better—and a
rasher of bacon, an egg, or an anchovy, by way
of relish. The witness is generally a stranger
in the land: he may have come from remote
Camberwell, and his tea reminds him of his
happy home. The young lady attendant at the
coffee-shop is usually aware of her customer
being a witness, by his asking for the Morning
Advertiser, which organ is not often taken in
under the tea dispensation, and next by his
subsiding into the placid perusal of the Standard
of the day before yesterday. He reads of
bygone trials and witnesses of the past, and
buoys himself up, perchance, with the hope that
his own fame will be wafted down to posterity
by the Standard of to-morrow.

The witness, while he is in the chrysalis or
grub-state—I mean no pun—but his transition
condition, before he develops into the full-grown
butterflydom of the box, is lifted several
hundred feet above his ordinary social altitude. He
lives in another world. He has associates and
intimates he would not have dreamt of being
gregarious with, two days ago. He is made
much of. He is a superior being. Barristers
walk up and down Westminster Hall, arm in
arm with him. Wealthy solicitors clap him on
the shoulder and tell him to stand firm. Baronets
press his hand, and sometimes leave substantial
tokens of their affection for him behind the