he day--a trifling matter, amounting only to
about eighteen pounds seventeen shillings. But a severe admonition from
the Bench accompanied this act of grace: "The Court cannot be kept
waiting," said his lordship; "and it is necessary that all suitors should
know that if they are not here when their cases are called on they will
be struck out, or the party to the cause who is here will be entitled to
a verdict, if the defendant; or to try his case in the other's absence,
if he be the plaintiff. It was idle to suppose that parties could not be
there in time: it was their business to be there."

At this every junior barrister nodded approvingly, and the usher called
silence.

Of course, the cause could not be in the paper again for some time: they
must suit Mr. Ricochet's convenience now: and accordingly another period
of waiting had to be endured. Mr. Bumpkin was almost distracted, but his
peace of mind was restored by the worthy Prigg, who persuaded him that a
most laudable piece of good fortune had been brought about by his
intervention; and that was the preventing the wily Snooks from keeping
the verdict he had snatched.

What a small thing will sometimes comfort us!

Mr. Bumpkin was, indeed, a lucky man; for if his case had not been in the
paper when at last it was, it would have "gone over the Long Vacation."

At length I saw Mr. Justice Pangloss, the eminent Chancery Judge, take
his seat in the Bail Court. He was an immense case lawyer. He knew
cases that had been tried in the reigns of the Edwards and Henries. A
pig case could not, therefore, come amiss.

A case lawyer is like Moses and Sons; he can fit anybody, from Chang down
to a midget. But there is sometimes an inconvenience in trying to fit an
old precedent on to new circumstances: and I am not unfrequently reminded
of the boy whose corduroy trousers were of the exact length, and looked
tolerable in front; but if you went round they stuck out a good deal on
the other side. He might grow to them, no doubt, but it is a clumsy mode
of tailoring after all.

Now Mr. Bumpkin, of course, could not be sure that his case was "coming
on." All he knew was, that he must avoid Snooks' snatching another
verdict. He had been to great expense, and a commission had actually
been issued to take Joe's evidence while his regiment was detained at
Malta. Mr. Prigg had taken the plaintiff into a crowd, and there had
left him early in the morning.

Mr. Bumpkin's