l more or less to the discredit of Alan Walcott,
and to print them before his trial was grossly unfair. Mr. Larmer wrote
a few indignant words on this subject also, and, made about two in a
thousand of the scandal-mongers ashamed of themselves. Not content with
this he supplied a friend with one or two paragraphs relating to the
case, which had the effect of stimulating the interest already aroused
in it. By this plan he secured the insertion of a statement in the best
of the society journals, which put the matter at issue in a fair and
unprejudiced way, dwelling on such facts as the pending divorce-suit,
the fining of Mrs. Walcott at Hammersmith, her molestation of her
husband on various recent occasions, and her intrusion upon him in
Alfred Place. This article, written with manifest knowledge of the
circumstances, yet with much reserve and moderation, was a very
serviceable diversion in Alan's favor, and did something to diminish the
odium into which he had fallen.

Mr. Larmer would not have selected trial by ordeal in the columns of the
newspapers as the best preparation for a trial before an English judge
and jury; but the process was begun by others before he had a word to
say in the matter, and his efforts were simply directed to making the
most of the situation which had been created. A mass of prejudice had
been introduced into the case by the worthy gentlemen who maintain that
in these evil days the press is the one thing needful for moral and
political salvation, and who never lose an opportunity of showing how
easy it would be to govern a nation by leading articles, or to redeem
humanity by a series of reports and interviews. Alan had given himself
up for lost when he found himself in the toils of this prejudice; but
Mr. Larmer saw a chance of turning it to good account both for his
client and for himself, and not unnaturally took advantage of the
awakened curiosity to put his friend's case clearly and vividly before
the popular tribunal.

Alan nearly upset the calculation of the lawyer by his impatience of the
interviewing tribe. Half-a-dozen of them found him out at different
times, and would not take his no for an answer. At last worried by the
pertinacity of one bolder and clumsier than all the rest, he took him by
the shoulders and bundled him out of his room, and the insulted
ambassador, as he called himself, wrote to his employer a particularly
spiteful account of his reception, with sundry embellishm