ccept with
appropriate courtesy. In the excitement of professional altercation with
counsel respecting the ages of certain persons concerned in a suit, he
committed the indecorum of saying aloud, "I'll lay you a bottle of
wine." Ever on the alert to catch his enemy tripping, Thurlow's eye
brightened as his ear caught the careless words; and in another instant
he assumed a look of indignant disgust. But before the irate judge could
speak, Arden exclaimed, "My lord, I beg your lordship's pardon; I really
forgot where I was." Had Thurlow bowed a grave acceptance of the
apology, Arden would have suffered somewhat from the misadventure; but
unable to keep his abusive tongue quiet, the 'Great Bear' growled out,
in allusion to the offender's Welsh judgeship, "You thought you were in
your own court, I presume."

More laughable, but not more courteous, was the same Chancellor's speech
to a solicitor who had made a series of statements in a vain endeavor to
convince his lordship of a certain person's death. "Really, my lord," at
last the solicitor exclaimed, goaded into a fury by Thurlow's repeated
ejaculations of "That's no proof of the man's death;" "Really, my lord,
it is very hard, and it is not right that you won't believe me. I saw
the man dead in his coffin. My lord, I tell you he was my client, and he
is dead." "No wonder," retorted Thurlow, with a grunt and a sneer,
"_since he was your client_. Why did you not tell me that sooner? It
would kill me to have such a fellow as you for my attorney." That this
great lawyer could thus address a respectable gentleman is less
astonishing when it is remembered, that he once horrified a party of
aristocratic visitors at a country-house by replying to a lady who
pressed him to take some grapes, "Grapes, madam, grapes! Did not I say a
minute ago that I had the _gripes_!" Once this ungentle lawyer was
fairly worsted in a verbal conflict by an Irish pavier. On crossing the
threshold of his Ormond Street house one morning, the Chancellor was
incensed at seeing a load of paving-stones placed before his door.
Singling out the tallest of a score of Irish workmen who were repairing
the thoroughfare, he poured upon him one of those torrents of curses
with which his most insolent speeches were usually preluded, and then
told the man to move the stones away instantly. "Where shall I take them
to, your honor?" the pavier inquired. From the Chancellor another volley
of blasphemous abuse, ending w