because I look so desperately lively."

There _is_ a sort of "disinterred liveliness" (to quote Bishop
WILBERFORCE) about him, after all. Tries to joke. No doubt regards us
all as a pack of fools to join over-crowded profession--still, as we
_are_ here, he will try and forget that, in a few years, the majority
of us will probably be starving.

After an interval, Bored Bencher thinks it necessary to rise and
make little speech. Assures us (_Query_--hyprocrisy?) that we are
all extremely likely to attain to high positions at the Bar. Says
something feebly humorous about Woolsack. Bad taste, because we can't
_all_ sit on Woolsack at once; and mention of it excites feelings of
emulation, almost of animosity, towards other new-fledged Barristers.
I am conscious, for instance, of distinct repulsion towards man on my
right, who is cracking nuts, and who must be a son or nephew of our
Chairman, judging by the familiarity with which he treats latter.
Probably his uncle will flood him with briefs--and that will be called
"making his own way in the world." Pshaw!

Wine-and-dessert entertainment only lasts an hour. Forbidding Bencher
evidently feels that an hour is as much as he can possibly stand. So
we all depart, except the favoured nephew (or son), who, as I suspect,
"remains to prey" on his uncle (or father), and probably to be invited
in to the _real_ feast which no doubt the Inn worthies are enjoying
upstairs.

Next morning meet a legal friend, who asks, "When are you to be
presented at Court?"

"Presented at Court?"--I ask in surprise.

"Yes--Court of Queen's Bench--ha! ha! You'll have to go one of these
days in wig and gown to the Q.B.D., and inscribe your name in a big
book, and bow to the Judges, and come out."

"What's the good of doing that?" I want to know.

"None whatever. An old custom, that's all. A sort of legal fiction,
you know." (_Query_--If a Queen's Counsel writes a novel, isn't _that_
a real legal fiction?) "You'll feel rather like a little boy going
to a new school. Judges look at you with an air of 'I say, you new
feller, what's your name? Where do you come from? What House are
you in?--then a good kick. They can't kick you, so they glare at you
instead. Interesting ceremony. Ta, ta!"

It turns out as my friend says. But previously there is the
other little formality of purchasing the trailing garments of the
Profession. Go to a wig-and-gown-maker near the Law Courts. Ask to see
different kinds