d with him, and in many ways facilitated his
progress so materially and so kindly that more than once the
compunctious young Welshman thought of discarding the impersonation;
and might have done so had not this most estimable Stansfield died
of pneumonia in the last year of David's studenthood.
Of course the preliminary examination was easily and quickly passed.
David translated his bit of Caesar's commentaries, answered
brilliantly the questions about Alfred the Great, the Anglo-Norman
kings, the Constitutions of Clarendon, Magna Charta and Mortmain,
Henry the Eighth and the Reformation, the Civil War and
Protectorate of Cromwell, the Bill of Rights and the Holy Alliance.
He paid his fees and his "caution" money; he ate the requisite six
dinners--or more, as he found them excellent and convenient--in each
term, attended all the lectures that interested him, and passed the
subsidiary examinations on them with fair or even high credit; and
finally got through his "Call-to-the-Bar" examination with tolerable
success; at any rate he passed. A friend of the deceased
Stansfield--whose death was always one of the scars in Vivie's
memory--introduced him to one of the Masters of the Bench who signed
his "call" papers. He once more made a declaration to the effect
that he was not a person in Holy Orders, that he was not a
Solicitor, Attorney-at-law, Writer to the Signet, etc., etc., a
Chartered, Incorporated or Professional Accountant; and again that
if called to the Bar, he would never become a member of the abhorred
professions over and over again enumerated; and was duly warned that
without special permission of the Masters of the Bench of the Inner
Temple he might not practise "under the Bar"--whatever that may mean
(I dare say it is some low-down procedure, only allowed in times of
scarcity). Then after having his name "screened" for twelve days in
all the Halls of the four Inns, and going in fear and trembling that
some one might turn up and object, he finally received his call to
the Bar on April 22 (if April 22 in that year was on a Sunday, then
on the following Monday) and was "called" at the Term Dinner where
he took wine with the Masters. He remembered seeing present at the
great table on the dais, besides the usual red-faced generals and
whiskered admirals, simpering statesmen, and his dearly loved
friend, Michael Rossiter--representing Science,--a more sinister
face. This was the well-known philanthropist and race
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