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actress be less active, wary, and capable of attending to her business than a merchant, a grocer, or any other man who devotes himself to the one purpose? Why should we publish laudatory notices of the industry and money-making capacity of a merchant or a tallow-chandler, and not praise the same qualities in the little merchant of roulades and glissades, who sold her glances, smiles, wiles, dances, activity, and high and low notes, for as much money as she could get?

"You will tell Mademoiselle, then, that I will be sure to be there. I have the two stall tickets, and I am provided with a bouquet. Here is the money."

Edgar Wade packed the sovereigns in a neat envelope of his own making, and handed it to the dame de compagnie, who was kept purposely by Fifine to play propriety, and to be as a watchful dragon over those golden charms of hers.

"Be sure to come!" Edgar Wade's infatuation was so great, that he would have gone to Nova Zembla for her. Men of mature age, who have never loved before, love strongly indeed; and young ladies of very tender years universally show a wise and prescient intelligence in preferring the love of a man of thirty, or thereabouts, to a boy's love. Fifine was herself a female philosopher in these matters, and had quite a tendresse for somewhat advanced admirers.

"They were," she said, "so generous. Boys, as a rule, were so selfish."

As the lady prepared, with the most polite courtesy, to depart, Mr Wade, who had risen, said, with what the French call empressement

"You will be sure and tell Mdlle. Natalie that, in coming to her benefit, I am paying her a compliment I would not pay any other artist in the world."

The lady bowed.

"And I may tell you," continued the barrister, "that my mother, Mrs Wade "-here he passed his hands over his weary, sunken eyes-" is, and has been now for some time, very ill, and that properly I should be with her during the night at least, since business detains me during the day; but, nevertheless, assure Nathalie that I will not fail. I shall be sure to be there, to cast these flowers at her feet."

"Cast these flowers at her feet!" Yes, those were the words that Mr Checketts heard from the opening door as the veiled lady passed out. The faithful valet was in a half-dreamy state from having had so long to wait, from the room redolent of apples, the monotonous plash of the fountain, and the halfawakened, slow, dull atmosphere of law which had fallen for some hundreds of years upon the Temple and its buildings-an atmosphere which lies like a thick fog upon our venerable laws and ever-to-be-venerated law-makers.

"Cast flowers at her feet!" murmured Scorem, as he noted down the phrase to be used before the assembled Cogers, or Lumber Troopers, as a pretty figure in connection with the Majesty of Britannia, the Queen of the Seas, and the Leader of Order and Civilisation.

"Casting flowers at her feet!" thought Checketts, in his dreamy state. "Why, he is talking poetry and play-making, not law. And my dear master in prison, and the old Earl in a fit, and old Gurgles-God bless him!-beside himself, and swearin', quite forgettin' the 'Gorspel Mag.' Half of us mad, and this cool fellow talking like that. Dash it! there's always a woman at the bottom of it."

The door shut, and a little bell was heard to ring.

"Now,

Checketts, Esquire," said Scorem, jumping off his stool and into his business way always kept for clients—“it's your turn next, sir! Pray walk in, sir!"

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CHAPTER XXV.

MY DEAR GOOD MASTER, I WOULD PLEAD HIS CAUSE.” MR CHECKETTS entered Edgar's room, still eagerly bent upon his master's business, but somewhat toned down by waiting and reflecting in the outer office; for even the chambers of counsel learned in the law have that effect upon the uncultured laity who approach the temples of Themis, as, heretofore, the strongholds of the priesthood of the Eleusinian mysteries had upon the strangers who came near them.

Mr Checketts' ideas concerning law were few, and were not

very clear. He had friends, in a lower walk of life, who had got into scrapes with constables and with police; and his father, being "in the public line," as he phrased it, had had to appear before the magistrates who looked to the important measure of licensing public-houses.

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In the opinion of Mr Checketts, senior, the whole system of law and of licence, which, to his view, were one, was a system of fraud. In those happy days, if a man were on easy terms with a justice of the peace, or could get a gentleman of position to say a good word for him, the matter was soon settled. few questions, a pleasant good morning, a caution not to allow drunkenness, nor to harbour loose and suspicious characters, and you went away with your licence in your pocket, particularly if you fee'd the constables.

"Them you must fee," said old Checketts, "and you were all right, whether there was one public in the neighbourhood, or they were as close as beehives in an aviary."

The good man meant an apiary; but it was all the same. It was plain that he had no belief in the justice of the law. And how many of the lower class then had? It was a dangerous time; and it always will be a dangerous time, when people are not convinced of the necessity and the strict justice of law and lawgivers. Bold spirits were abroad who clamoured for reform; and, with many, reform meant revolution.

Happily the trading class had found this out; and gave the nation the proper pause, wherein England almost always adjusts herself. There were other men, like our friend Mr Scorem, who were really the salt of the nation-poor and content, ready to wait, and positively eager to see good in things evil. If the Court and the aristocracy did not do their duty, but were wholly given to vain expense and pleasure, these worthy people were ready to argue-"Well, if you had money, would you not spend it as you liked?" Or, "Spendmoney is good for trade; if everybody was a miser, where would the poor be?" If they were beaten in that argument, they would simply tell their opponents to mind their own business, and let the rich mind theirs.

But about this matter of law, the minds of the poor were pretty much of the same opinion. They did not look upon

the law as the poor man's friend. They used its name as a threat of strong terror. "I'll have the law of you," was a terrifying saying, which sent many a poor man into fits. Poor debtors starved at Whitecross Street; and rich debtors played at rackets in the Fleet, by the side of poor debtors who were starving. Rich young men, noblemen, gentlemen-or their imitators, rich tradesmen-sallied out of a night, bent upon what Old Daylight called "Tom and Jerrying;" and were let off with a friendly caution, after making the magistrates laugh. While poor mechanics, who, after working hard, went out for a "spree," were fined and punished severely, and had a scolding sermon administered to them from the bench.

As for justice, that was hardly so much a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence, in the opinion of Checketts, Esquire, junior, as a plain toss-up. Robert Peel's Act was going to put things right; and the New Police, whose appearance in the streets created quite a commotion, and who were followed about at first, at an admiring distance, by the boys, were hailed by no means as a force equally purposed to defend both the rich and the poor, but rather as a sort of domestic dragoons, to keep the poor down. When, therefore, Mr Checketts found these dragoons had invaded Chesterton House, he was utterly perplexed.

He gave a curious look round at Edgar's apartment, noticing the fine bouquet of flowers on the table, and thought that they were somewhat foreign to a lawyer's office-for barristers or solicitors were all one to him; and, indeed, to most of his class-and then sat down at the edge of the chair which Mr Wade pointed out, with very much of the feeling that a plain countryman of the old time might have experienced when he came to consult an astrologer.

"I see you are from the Earl of Chesterton," said Edgar Wade, who never forgetting a face, even if he had only once seen it at once recognised Checketts. "Pray, what does he

want with me?"

Mr Checketts, who had come purposely to ask Edgar's aid, was at once nonplussed. There are some persons who object to anything like a direct question. Mr Checketts was not one

of those; but he had come upon a roving commission of his own, and he hardly knew how to explain himself.

"Please, sir," he stammered out at last, "I found your card on Lord Wimpole's mantelshelf. I believe you called on him the other day?"

"I did. What then? Does he want to see me, or is it his father?"

"Both of them, sir, I think," replied Mr Checketts, uneasily. "Both of them-why?"

"Well, sir, I don't know my lord's secrets, and "—

"Then you are very much unlike other servants," said Edgar, drily, and, as Checketts thought, somewhat rudely. "You are, I suppose, Lord Wimpole's servant?”

"Yes, sir," said Checketts.; "his own man, sir-out of livery. I have served him nearly ten years-first as a groom; and a better, kinder master does not tread this earth. Not tread this earth, sir," said the faithful Checketts, repeating his words, to give emphasis to his assertion.

"That may be. I can well believe it. It does you both credit to hear you say so. But that is not to our purpose. Come to the point, man, and don't stare about in so dazed a way! Have you never seen a bouquet of flowers before?"

"Yes, sir-many."

"Well, then, have you not a message to deliver? If so, deliver it. My time is precious. Have you no letter?"

"No, sir. I came on my own account."

"Just now you said you came both from the Earl and from Lord Wimpole. What can be the matter with you?"

As he said this, severely enough, Edgar Wade moved the flowers from his writing-table; and put them, less in view of Checketts, on one of his side desks.

"Now, then," he added, "I suppose you have got into some mess; and, with the confusion of people of your class, you fancy that a barrister and a solicitor are one and the same. If so, I can't help you. I might give you some advice, if you could find your tongue."

"I

"No, sir-no, indeed!" cried Checketts, earnestly. don't come for myself. I keep out of lawyers' ways as long as I can."

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