additional incentive to keep me to my daily task of watching, this
would have been sufficient; but I wanted none. I knew that my whole
future depended upon it, and there I was from ten in the morning till
ten at night.

My first fee was small, but it was the biggest fee I ever had. It was
10s. 6d. I was only a special pleader, and with some papers our fees
were even less; we only had to _draw_ pleadings, not to open them in
court--that comes after you are called to the Bar. Drawing them means
really drawing the points of the case for counsel, and opening them
means a gabbling epitome of them to the jury, which no jury in this
world ever yet understood or ever will.

This little matter was the forerunner of others, and by little and
little I steadily went on, earning a few shillings now and a few
shillings then, but, best of all, becoming known little by little here
and there.

I was aware that some knowledge of the world would be necessary for me
when I once got into it by way of business as an advocate, so I came
to the conclusion that it would be well to commence that branch of
study as soon as I closed the other for the day--or rather for the
night.

I had not far to go to school, only to the Haymarket and its
delightful purlieus; and there were the best teachers to be found in
the world, and the most recondite studies. For all these I kept, as
the great politicians say, an open mind, and learned a great deal
which stood me in good stead in after-life.