sure we did,' says the touter, 'you're a babby to
him--this way, sir--this way!' And sure enough my father walks arter
him, like a tame monkey behind a horgan, into a little back office, vere
a feller sat among dirty papers, and tin boxes, making believe he was
busy. 'Pray take a seat, vile I makes out the affidavit, sir,' says the
lawyer. 'Thankee, sir,' says my father, and down he sat, and stared with
all his eyes, and his mouth wide open, at the names on the boxes.
'What's your name, sir?' says the lawyer. 'Tony Weller,' says my father.
'Parish?' says the lawyer. 'Belle Savage,' says my father; for he
stopped there when he drove up, and he know'd nothing about parishes,
_he_ didn't. 'And what's the lady's name?' says the lawyer. My father
was struck all of a heap. 'Blessed if I know,' says he. 'Not know!' says
the lawyer. 'No more nor you do,' says my father; 'can't I put that in
arterwards?' 'Impossible!' says the lawyer. 'Wery well,' says my father,
after he'd thought a moment, 'put down Mrs. Clarke.' 'What Clarke?' says
the lawyer, dipping his pen in the ink. 'Susan Clarke, Markis o' Granby,
Dorking,' says my father; 'she'll have me if I ask, I dessay--I never
said nothing to her; but she'll have me, I know.' The licence was made
out, and she _did_ have him, and what's more she's got him now; and _I_
never had any of the four hundred pound, worse luck. Beg your pardon,
sir," said Sam, when he had concluded, "but when I gets on this here
grievance, I runs on like a new barrow with the wheel greased."

Doctors' Commons is now a ruin. The spider builds where the proctor once
wove his sticky web. The college, rebuilt after the Great Fire, is
described by Elmes as an old brick building in the Carolean style, the
interior consisting of two quadrangles once occupied by the doctors, a
hall for the hearing of causes, a spacious library, a refectory, and
other useful apartments. In 1867, when Doctors' Commons was deserted by
the proctors, a clever London essayist sketched the ruins very
graphically, at the time when the Metropolitan Fire Brigade occupied the
lawyers' deserted town:--

"A deserted justice-hall, with dirty mouldering walls, broken doors and
windows, shattered floor, and crumbling ceiling. The dust and fog of
long-forgotten causes lowering everywhere, making the small
leaden-framed panes of glass opaque, the dark wainscot grey, coating the
dark rafters with a heavy dingy fur, and lading the atmosphere with a