as much power as anyone."

"Then I hope he'll exert it; for it's a shame that this poor man should
be kept waiting about so long. I quite feel for him: there really ought
not to be so much delay in the administration of justice."

"A dilatory administration of justice amounts too often to a denial of it
altogether. It always increases the expense, and often results in
absolute ruin."

"I wonder men don't appoint someone when they fell out to arbitrate
between them."

"They often do, and too frequently, after all the expense of getting
ready for trial has been incurred, the case is at last sent to the still
more costly tribunal called a reference. Many matters cannot be tried by
a jury, but many can be that are not; one side clamouring for a reference
in order to postpone the inevitable result; the other often obliged to
submit and be defeated by mere lapse of time."

"It seems an endless sort of business."

"Not quite; the measure of it is too frequently the length of the purse
on the one side or the other. A Railway Company, who has been cast in
damages for 1,000 pounds, can soon wear out a poor plaintiff. One of the
greatest evils of modern litigation is the frequency with which new
trials are granted."

"Lawyers," said my wife, "are not apparently good men of business."

"They are not organizers."

"It wants such a man as General Wolseley."

"Precisely." And here I felt the usual drowsiness which the subject
invariably produces. So I dreamed again.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Morning reflections--Mrs. Oldtimes proves herself to be a great
philosopher--the departure of the recruits to be sworn in.

And as I dreamed, methought what a strange paradox is human nature. How
often the night's convivialities are followed by despondent morning
reflections! In the evening we grow valiant over the inspiriting
converse and the inspiring glass; in the morning we are tame and
calculating. The artificial gaslight disappears, and the sober, grey
morning breaks in upon our reason. If the sunshine only ripened one-half
the good resolves and high purposes formed at night over the social
glass, what a harvest of good deeds there would be! Yes, and if the
evening dissipations did not obliterate the good resolves of the morning,
which we so often form as a protection against sin and sorrow, what happy
creatures we should be!

Methought I looked into a piece of three-cornered glass, which was
resting on a ledge o