rstood professional matters
a little better, you'd know that a professional gentleman couldn't
make a bet as to a case partly in his own hands without very great
impropriety." And Dockwrath gathered himself up, endeavouring to
impress a sense of his importance on the two witnesses, even should
he fail of doing so upon Mr. Moulder.

Moulder repocketed his ten-pound note, and laughed with a long, low
chuckle. According to his idea of things, he had altogether got the
better of the attorney upon that subject. As he himself put it so
plainly, what criterion is there by which a man can test the validity
of his own opinion if he be not willing to support it by a bet? A man
is bound to do so, or else to give way and apologise. For many years
he had insisted upon this in commercial rooms as a fundamental law in
the character and conduct of gentlemen, and never yet had anything
been said to him to show that in such a theory he was mistaken.

During all this Bridget Bolster sat there much delighted. It was not
necessary to her pleasure that she should say much herself. There she
was seated in the society of gentlemen and of men of the world, with
a cup of tea beside her, and the expectation of a little drop of
something warm afterwards. What more could the world offer to her, or
what more had the world to offer to anybody? As far as her feelings
went she did not care if Lady Mason were tried every month in the
year! Not that her feelings towards Lady Mason were cruel. It was
nothing to her whether Lady Mason should be convicted or acquitted.
But it was much to her to sit quietly on her chair and have nothing
to do, to eat and drink of the best, and be made much of; and it was
very much to her to hear the conversation of her betters.

On the following morning Dockwrath breakfasted by appointment with
Mr. Mason,--promising, however, that he would return to his friends
whom he left behind him, and introduce them into the court in proper
time. As I have before hinted, Mr. Mason's confidence in Dockwrath
had gone on increasing day by day since they had first met each other
at Groby Park, till he now wished that he had altogether taken the
advice of the Hamworth attorney and put this matter entirely into
his hands. By degrees Joseph Mason had learned to understand and
thoroughly to appreciate the strong points in his own case; and
now he was so fully convinced of the truth of those surmises which
Dockwrath had been the first to make