But kick all "cross coves" out, and trust to honest skill.

* * * * *

JOURNAL OF A ROLLING STONE.

TENTH ENTRY.

DICK FIBBINS, my more or less "learned" instructor in practical law,
goes out to a good many evening parties, I find. Casually remarks that
he "danced three square dances, the other night, with old DAVIS's ugly
daughter, the Solor (legal slang for Solicitor), in Caraway Street."
It's DAVIS himself, not the daughter, that is the Solicitor, and, it
seems she introduced the gay FIBBINS to her Papa. Hence another brief,
a rather complicated one, on some dispute about a mortgage.

[Illustration]

On the morning when the case is to come into Court, DICK the
Brief-hunter, who has promised to take me there, seems nervous. Yet he
is still confident that, if "old PROSER" is the judge, he will "pull
the thing off." It will be, apparently, a case of "Pull FIBBINS, pull
PROSER."

In Court I occupy a seat just behind him, because--as he
observes--I've been "grinding away at the case, and know the subject
down to the ground"--which I don't think _he_ does. I therefore am to
act as his reserves, also as his prompter, and to supply him with the
names of cases which he has forgotten, and which he wishes to quote.
Rather a responsible position. Should feel more confidence in result