an abundance of congenial society.
Brother-circuiteers came to his wife's drawing-room for tea and chat,
coffee and cards. There was a substantial supper at half-past eight or
nine for such guests (supper cooked in my lady's little kitchen, or
supplied by the 'Society's cook'); and the smoking dishes were
accompanied by foaming tankards of ale or porter, and followed by
superb and richly aromatic bowls of punch. On occasions when the learned
man worked hard and shut out visitors by sporting his oak, he enjoyed
privacy as unbroken and complete as that of any library in Kensington or
Tyburnia. If friends stayed away, and he wished for diversion, he could
run into the chambers of old college-chums, or with his wife's gracious
permission could spend an hour at Chatelin's or Nando's, or any other
coffeehouse in vogue with members of his profession. During festive
seasons, when the judges' and leaders' ladies gave their grand balls,
the young couple needed no carriage for visiting purposes. From Gray's
Inn to the Temple they walked--if the weather was fine. When it rained
they hailed a hackney-coach, or my lady was popped into a sedan and
carried by running bearers to the frolic of the hour.

Of course the notes of the preceding paragraphs of this chapter are but
suggestions as to the mode in which the artistic reader must call up the
life of the old lawyers. Encouraging him to realize the manners and
usages of several centuries, not of a single generation, they do not
attempt to entertain the student with details. It is needless to say
that the young couple did not use hackney-coaches in times prior to the
introduction of those serviceable vehicles, and that until sedans were
invented my lady never used them.

It is possible, indeed it is certain, that married ladies living in
chambers occasionally had for neighbors on the same staircase women whom
they regarded with abhorrence. Sometimes it happened that a dissolute
barrister introduced to his rooms a woman more beautiful than virtuous,
whom he had not married, though he called her his wife. People can no
more choose their neighbors in a house broken up into sets of chambers,
than they can choose them in the street. But the cases where ladies
were daily liable to meet an offensive neighbor on their common
staircase were comparatively rare; and when the annoyance actually
occurred, the discipline of the Inn afforded a remedy.

Uncleanness too often lurked within the camp,