fra dig._--or merely "pleasantly
colloquial?") to the ground.

"I was," I say boldly, "going to ask you if you would let _me_ read
with you."

"Were you?" replies DICK, apparently intensely astonished at the idea;
"By Jove! I should be really sorry to disappoint _you_. Yes," he goes
on in a burst of generosity, "I will make room for you--there!"

This is really kind of DICK FIBBINS. We finally arrange that I am to
come in two days' time--at the usual, and rather pretentious, fee of
one hundred guineas for a year's "coaching"--and begin work.

"You'll see some good cases with me--good fighting cases," FIBBINS
remarks, as I take my leave. "When there are no briefs, why, you
can read up the Law Reports, you know. My books are quite at your
disposal."

"But," I remark, a little surprised at that hint about no briefs--I
thought DICK FIBBINS had more than he knew what to do with--"I
suppose--er--there's plenty of business going on here?"

"Oh, heaps," replies FIBBINS, hastily. Then, as if to do away with any
bad impression which his thoughtless observation about no briefs might
have occasioned in my mind, he says, heartily,--

"And, when I take old PROSER up to the Court of Appeal, _you shall
come too, and hear me argue!_"

I express suitable gratitude--but isn't it rather "contempt of Court"
on FIBBINS's part to talk about "taking up" a Judge?--and feel, as I
depart, that I shall soon see something of the real inner life of the
Profession.

* * * * *

ON THE MARLOWE MEMORIAL.

(_UNVEILED BY MR. HENRY IRVING AT CANTERBURY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1891._)

MARLOWE, your "mighty line"
Though worthy of a darling of the Nine,
Has--in quotation--many a reader riled.
Like SHAKSPEARE's "wood-notes wild,"
And POPE's "lisped numbers," it becomes a bore
When hackneyed o'er and o'er
By every petty scribe and criticaster.
Yet we must own you master
Of the magnificent and magniloquent.
And modern playwrights might be well content
Were they but dowered with passion, fancy, wit,
Like great ill-fated "KIT."

* * * * *

THE LAST OF THE CANTERBURY TALES.

BEFORE THE UNVEILING.

_She_. What do you know about MARLOWE?

_He_. Isn't it somewhere near Taplow?

_She_. I think not, because Mr. IRVING went to unveil MARLOWE, and I
don't think he is a rowing-man.

_He_. But he may be doing it for Sir MORELL MACKENZIE, who has a place
a