Tom
Towers walks quietly along Pall Mall, with his coat buttoned close
against the east wind, as though he were a mortal man, and not a god
dispensing thunderbolts from Mount Olympus.

It was not to Mount Olympus that our friend Bold betook himself. He
had before now wandered round that lonely spot, thinking how grand a
thing it was to write articles for _The Jupiter_; considering within
himself whether by any stretch of the powers within him he could ever
come to such distinction; wondering how Tom Towers would take any
little humble offering of his talents; calculating that Tom Towers
himself must have once had a beginning, have once doubted as to
his own success. Towers could not have been born a writer in _The
Jupiter_. With such ideas, half ambitious and half awe-struck, had
Bold regarded the silent-looking workshop of the gods; but he had
never yet by word or sign attempted to influence the slightest word
of his unerring friend. On such a course was he now intent; and not
without much inward palpitation did he betake himself to the quiet
abode of wisdom, where Tom Towers was to be found o' mornings inhaling
ambrosia and sipping nectar in the shape of toast and tea.

Not far removed from Mount Olympus, but somewhat nearer to the blessed
regions of the West, is the most favoured abode of Themis. Washed by
the rich tide which now passes from the towers of Caesar to Barry's
halls of eloquence; and again back, with new offerings of a city's
tribute, from the palaces of peers to the mart of merchants, stand
those quiet walls which Law has delighted to honour by its presence.
What a world within a world is the Temple! how quiet are its
"entangled walks," as someone lately has called them, and yet how
close to the densest concourse of humanity! how gravely respectable
its sober alleys, though removed but by a single step from the
profanity of the Strand and the low iniquity of Fleet Street! Old
St Dunstan, with its bell-smiting bludgeoners, has been removed; the
ancient shops with their faces full of pleasant history are passing
away one by one; the bar itself is to go--its doom has been pronounced
by _The Jupiter_; rumour tells us of some huge building that is to
appear in these latitudes dedicated to law, subversive of the courts
of Westminster, and antagonistic to the Rolls and Lincoln's Inn; but
nothing yet threatens the silent beauty of the Temple: it is the
mediaeval court of the metropolis.

Here, on the