tyle
or from association of ideas?" thought Mr. Clarkson as he opened a
Milton, of which he always read a few lines every morning to dignify the
day.

On the appointed date, he set out eastward with an exhilarating sense of
change, and thoroughly enjoyed the drive down Holborn among the crowd of
City men. "It's rather strangely like going to the seaside," he remarked
to the man next him on the motor-'bus. The man asked him if he had come
from New Zealand to see the decorations, and arrived late. "Oh no," said
Mr. Clarkson, "I seldom think the Colonies interesting, and I distrust
decoration in every form."

It was unfortunate, but the moment he mounted the Court stairs, the
decoration struck him. There were the expected scenes, historic and
emblematic of Roman law, blindfold Justice, the Balance, the Sword, and
other encouraging symbols. But in one semicircle he especially noticed a
group of men, women, and children, dancing to the tabor's sound in naked
freedom. "Please, could you tell me," he asked of a stationary
policeman, "whether that scene symbolises the Age of Innocence, before
Law was needed, or the Age of Anarchy, when Law will be needed no
longer?"

"Couldn't rightly say," answered the policeman, looking up sideways;
"but I do wish they'd cover them people over more decent. They're a
houtrage on respectable witnesses."

"All art--" Mr. Clarkson was beginning, when the policeman said "Grand
Jury?" and pushed him through a door into a large court. A vision of
middle-age was there gathering, and a murmur of complaint filled the
room--the hurried breakfast, the heat, the interrupted business, the
reported large number of prisoners, likely to occupy two days, or even
three.

Silence was called, and four or five elderly gentlemen in
black-and-scarlet robes--"wise in their wigs, and flamboyant as
flamingoes," as a daily paper said of the judges at the Coronation--some
also decorated with gilded chains and deep fur collars, in spite of the
heat, entered from a side door and took their seats upon a raised
platform. Each carried in his hand a nosegay of flowers, screwed up
tight in a paper frill with lace-work round the edges, like the bouquets
that enthusiasts or the management throw to actresses.

"Are those flowers to cheer the prisoners?" Mr. Clarkson whispered, "or
are they the rudimentary survivals of the incense that used to
counteract the smell and infection of gaol-fever?"

"Covent Garden," was the re