wife
is sick, and my daughter dying--in the name of God, sir, let me go.'

'Nay, nay,' I said, having fast hold of him, 'I cannot let thee go
unpaid, sir. Right is right; and thou shalt have it.'

'Ruin is what I shall have, boy, if you drag me before that devil. He
will strike me from the bar at once, and starve me, and all my family.
Here, lad, good lad, take these two guineas. Thou hast despoiled
the spoiler. Never again will I trust mine eyes for knowledge of a
greenhorn.'

He slipped two guineas into the hand which I had hooked through his
elbow, and spoke in an urgent whisper again, for the people came
crowding around us--'For God's sake let me go, boy; another moment will
be too late.'

'Learned sir,' I answered him, 'twice you spoke, unless I err, of the
necessity of a clerk's fee, as a thing to be lamented.'

'To be sure, to be sure, my son. You have a clerk as much as I have.
There it is. Now I pray thee, take to the study of the law. Possession
is nine points of it, which thou hast of me. Self-possession is the
tenth, and that thou hast more than the other nine.'

Being flattered by this, and by the feeling of the two guineas and
half-crown, I dropped my hold upon Counsellor Kitch (for he was no less
a man than that), and he was out of sight in a second of time, wig, blue
bag, and family. And before I had time to make up my mind what I should
do with his money (for of course I meant not to keep it) the crier of
the Court (as they told me) came out, and wanted to know who I was. I
told him, as shortly as I could, that my business lay with His Majesty's
bench, and was very confidential; upon which he took me inside with
warning, and showed me to an under-clerk, who showed me to a higher one,
and the higher clerk to the head one.

When this gentleman understood all about my business (which I told him
without complaint) he frowned at me very heavily, as if I had done him
an injury.

'John Ridd,' he asked me with a stern glance, 'is it your deliberate
desire to be brought into the presence of the Lord Chief Justice?'

'Surely, sir, it has been my desire for the last two months and more.'

'Then, John, thou shalt be. But mind one thing, not a word of thy long
detention, or thou mayst get into trouble.'

'How, sir? For being detained against my own wish?' I asked him; but he
turned away, as if that matter were not worth his arguing, as, indeed, I
suppose it was not, and led me through a little passage t