Chapter 3

The boyhood and youth of the Advertising Barrister will have been passed in comparative obscurity. The merchant who relieved the monotony of a large and profitable wholesale business by treating him as a son, impressed upon him at an early age the necessity of making the family history illustrious by soaring beyond commerce to professional distinction and a fixed income. In furtherance of this scheme the son was sent to pick up a precarious education at a neighbouring day-school, where he astonished his companions by his ease in mastering the polite literature of the ancients and the vulgar fractions of Mr. BARNARD SMITH, and delighted his masters by the zeal with which he generally took his stand on the side of authority. Having, however, in the course of a school examination been detected in the illicit use of a volume of Bohn's Library, he was called upon for an explanation, and, after failing to satisfy his examiners that he meant only to reflect credit upon the school by the accuracy of his translations, he was advised to leave at the end of the term. After a short interval spent in the society of a coach, he entered a fast College at one of our ancient Universities, and, being possessed of a fairly comfortable allowance, soon distinguished himself by the calculating ardour with which he affected the acquaintance of young men of rank, and shared in the fashionable pleasures of the place. Recognising that amidst the careless and easy-going generosity of undergraduate society, he who has a cool and scheming head is usually able to tip the balance of good luck in his own favour, he lost no opportunity of ingratiating himself with those who might be of service to him. He cultivated a fluent style of platitudes and claptrap at his college debating society, and at the Union, to the committee of which he was elected after prolonged and assiduous canvassing. Having managed to be proctorised in company with the eldest son of a peer, whom he delighted by the studied impertinence of his answers to the Proctor, he eventually went down with a pass degree and a mixed reputation, and, after the orthodox number of dinners, and the regulation examination, had the satisfaction of seeing his name published in the list of those who, having acquired a smattering of Roman and English law, were entitled, for a consideration, to aid litigants with their counsel.

For the next few years little was heard of him. He read in chambers, drew pleadings and indictments, and gathered many useful tricks from the criminal advocate to whom he attached himself like a leech. During this period he also made the acquaintance of a Solicitor who had retired from the noon-day glare of professional rectitude to the congenial atmosphere of shady cases. He also struck up a friendship with two or three struggling journalists, who were occupied in hanging on to the paragraphic fringe of their profession, and who might be trusted afterwards to lend a hand to an intimate engaged in a similar, but not identical line of business. Helped by a shrewd, and not over-scrupulous clerk, he gradually picked up a practice, a thing mainly of shreds and patches, but still a practice of a sort. At the Middlesex Sessions, and at the Central Criminal Court, his name began to be mentioned; and in a certain money-lending case it was acknowledged that his astuteness had prevented the exposure of his client from being as crushing and complete as the rate of per-centage had seemed to warrant.

Soon afterwards, one of his richer college companions, whose convictions were stronger than his power of expressing them, was selected as Candidate for a remote constituency, where speakers were not easily obtained. The glib Barrister was remembered, and appealed to. At an immense sacrifice of time and money, he rushed to the rescue, his travelling and hotel expenses being defrayed by the Candidate. He spoke much, he spoke triumphantly; he referred, in touching terms, to the ties of ancient friendship that bound him to the noblest and best of men, the Candidate; and, when the latter was eventually elected, it was stated in every Metropolitan evening paper that he owed his success chiefly to the eloquence and energy of the able Barrister who had pleaded his cause. Henceforward there was no peace, politically speaking, for the Barrister. Swifter than swift CAMILLA he scoured the plain facts of political controversy at meeting after meeting, until they glowed under the dazzled eyes of innumerable electors. Where Leagues congregated, or Unions met, or Associations resolved, there he was to be found, always eager, in the fore-front of the battle. He became the cheap jackal of the large political lions who roar after their food throughout the length and breadth of the land, and picked up scraps in the shape of votes of thanks to chairmen. He figured at political receptions, and eventually contested a hopeless Constituency, with the assistance of the party funds. Having, by his complete defeat, established a claim on the gratitude of his party, he applied successively for a Recordership, a Police Magistracy, and a County Court Judgeship, but was compelled to be satisfied temporarily with the post of Revising Barrister. Yet, though he was disgusted with the base ingratitude of time-serving politicians, he was by no means disheartened, for he had long since become convinced that the best method of self-seeking was to seek office, and to clamour if that should be refused. Finally, after having paid to have his portrait engraved in a struggling party journal, and having appended to it a description, in which he compared himself to ERSKINE and the younger PITT, he became an annoyance to those who were his leaders at the Bar, or in politics. He was, therefore, appointed Chief Justice of the Soudan; and after distributing British justice to savages, at a cheap rate, for several years, he retired upon a pension, and was heard of no more.

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ROBERT'S LITTLE HOLLERDAY.

Easter Munday I dewoted to Epping Forrest. I draws a whale over my feelings when I looked out of my bed-room winder and seed the rain a cumming down in bucket-fulls! But a true Waiter can allus afford to Wait.

"Late as you likes, but never hurly, Seldom cross, and never surly, The jowial Waiter gos to his work, And enwys no Hethun nor yet no Turk!"

And I had my reward, for at 12.20 A.M. the jolly old sun bust forth, as much as to say, "it was only my fun!" So off I started by Rail, along with about a thowsand others, in such a jolly, rattling Nor-Wester, that the River Lea looked more like a arm of the foming Hocean than a mere tuppenny riwer. But the sun was nice and warm till about 1.30, when, just for a change, I suppose, down came a nice little shower of snow! and then more warm sun, and then plenty more cold wind, and then lots of rain. So them as likes wariety had plenty of it that day. And what a lovely wision was Epping Forest when we all got there! Ewerything as coud assist in emusing, and eddicating, and refining about a hundred thowsand peeple was there in such abundans that I myself heard a properioter of no less than 6 lofty swings a complaining, in werry powerful langwidge, that things in the swinging line are not as they used to be three or four years ago, for lots of the peeple are such fools that they acshally prefers taking a quiet walk through the Forest, to being either swung, or roundabouted, or cokernutted, or ewen Aunt-Salleyed! But the wise Filosopher will probbably say, if you wants to make peeple happy, speshally them as don't werry often get the chance, give 'em not what you likes, but what _they_ likes, and leave it to Old Father Time to teach 'em better sum day. ROBERT.

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LEGAL AND PERSONAL (_by an envious Barrister_).--Why is BUZFUZ, Q.C., like Necessity? _Ans._ Because he knows no law.

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