, sir, I bean't no schollard and so can't argify; but if thee plase
to tell I, sir, when this case o' mine be likely to come on--"

"I was just that minute going to write to you, Mr. Bumpkin, as your name
was announced, to say that it would not be taken until next term."

Mr. Bumpkin uttered an exclamation which is not for print, and which
caused the good Prigg to clap his hands to his ears and press them
tightly for five minutes. Then he took them away and rubbed them
together (I mean his hands), as though he were washing them from the
contaminating influence of Mr. Bumpkin's language.

"Quite so," he said, mechanically; "dear me!"

"What be quite so," asked Mr. Bumpkin.

"Yes--yes--you see," said Prigg, "Her Majesty's Judges have to go
circuit; or, as it is technically called, jail delivery."

"They be allays gwine suckitt."

"Quite so. That is precisely what the profession is always observing.
No sooner do they return from one circuit than they start off on another.
Are you aware, Mr. Bumpkin, that we pay a judge five thousand a-year to
try a pickpocket?"

"Hem!" said Bumpkin, "I bean't aware on it. Never used t' have so many
o' these 'ere--what d'ye call 'ems?"

"Circuits. No--but you see, here now is an instance. There's a prisoner
away somewhere, I think down at Bodmin, hundreds of miles off, and I
believe he has sent to say that they must come down and try him at once,
for he can't wait."

"I'd mak' un wait. Why should honest men wait for sich as he? I bin
waitin' long enough."

"Quite so. And the consequence is that the Lord Chief Justice of England
is going down to try him, a common pickpocket, I believe, and his
Lordship is the very head of the Judicial Body."

"Hem!" said Mr. Bumpkin; "then I may as well goo hoame?"

"Quite so," answered the amiable Prigg; "in fact, better--much better."

"An' we shan't come on now, sir; bean't there no chance?"

"Not the least, my dear sir; but you see we have not been idle; we have
been advancing, in fact, during the whole time that has seemed to you so
long. Now, just look, my dear sir; we have fought no less than ten
appeals, right up, mind you, to the Court of Appeal itself; we have
fought two demurrers; we have compelled them three times to give better
answers to our interrogatories, and we have had fourteen other summonses
at Chambers on which they have not thought proper to appeal beyond the
Judge. Now, Mr. Bumpkin, after that, I _think_ you