DUBLIN—THE BOARDING-HOUSE—SELECT SOCIETY.
[Illustration: Mr. Cudmore Filling the Teapot]
Punctual to my appointment with O’Flaherty, I found myself a very few
minutes after six o’clock at Mrs. Clanfrizzle’s door. My very
authoritative summons at the bell was answered by the appearance of a
young, pale-faced invalid, in a suit of livery the taste of which bore
a very unpleasant resemblance to the one I so lately figured in. It was
with considerable difficulty I persuaded this functionary to permit my
carrying my hat with me to the drawing-room, a species of caution on my
part—as he esteemed it—savouring much of distrust. This point however,
I carried, and followed him up a very ill-lighted stair to the
drawing-room; here I was announced by some faint resemblance to my real
name, but sufficiently near to bring my friend Tom at once to meet me,
who immediately congratulated me on my fortune in coming off so well,
for that the person who preceded me, Mr. Jones Blennerhasset, had been
just announced as Mr. Blatherhasit—a change the gentleman himself was
not disposed to adopt—“But come along, Harry, while we are waiting for
Daly, let me make you known to some of our party; this, you must know,
is a boarding-house, and always has some capital fun—queerest people
you ever met—I have only one hint—cut every man, woman, and child of
them, if you meet them hereafter—I do it myself, though I have lived
here these six months.” Pleasant people, thought I, these must be, with
whom such a line is advisable, much less practicable.
“Mrs. Clanfrizzle, my friend Mr. Lorrequer; thinks he’ll stay the
summer in town. Mrs. Clan—, should like him to be one of us.” This
latter was said sotto voce, and was a practice he continued to adopt in
presenting me to his several friends through the room.
Miss Riley, a horrid old fright, in a bird of paradise plume, and
corked eyebrows, gibbetted in gilt chains and pearl ornaments, and
looking as the grisettes say, “superbe en chrysolite”—“Miss Riley,
Captain Lorrequer, a friend I have long desired to present to
you—fifteen thousand a-year and a baronetcy, if he has sixpence”—sotto
again. “Surgeon M’Culloch—he likes the title,” said Tom in a
whisper—“Surgeon, Captain Lorrequer. By the by, lest I forget it, he
wishes to speak to you in the morning about his health; he is stopping
at Sandymount for the baths; you could go out there, eh!” The tall
thing in green spectacles bowed, and acknowledged Tom’s kindness by a
knowing touch of the elbow. In this way he made the tour of the room
for about ten minutes, during which brief space, I was according to the
kind arrangements of O’Flaherty, booked as a resident in the
boarding-house—a lover to at least five elderly, and three young
ladies—a patient—a client—a second in a duel to a clerk in the
post-office—and had also volunteered (through him always) to convey, by
all of his Majesty’s mails, as many parcels, packets, band-boxes, and
bird-cages, as would have comfortably filled one of Pickford’s vans.
All this he told me was requisite to my being well received, though no
one thought much of any breach of compact subsequently, except Mrs.
Clan—herself. The ladies had, alas! been often treated vilely before;
the doctor had never had a patient; and as for the belligerent knight
of the dead office, he’d rather die than fight any day.
The last person to whom my friend deemed it necessary to introduce me,
was a Mr. Garret Cudmore, from the Reeks of Kerry, lately matriculated
to all the honors of freshmanship in the Dublin university. This latter
was a low-sized, dark-browed man, with round shoulders, and
particularly long arms, the disposal of which seemed sadly to distress
him. He possessed the most perfect brogue I ever listened to; but it
was difficult to get him to speak, for on coming up to town some weeks
before, he had been placed by some intelligent friend at Mrs.
Clanfrizzle’s establishment, with the express direction to mark and
thoroughly digest as much as he could of the habits and customs of the
circle about him, which he was rightly informed was the very focus of
good breeding and haut ton; but on no account, unless driven thereto by
the pressure of sickness, or the wants of nature, to trust himself with
speech, which, in his then uninformed state, he was assured would
inevitably ruin him among his fastidiously cultivated associates.
To the letter and the spirit of the despatch he had received, the
worthy Garret acted rigidly, and his voice was scarcely ever known to
transgress the narrow limits prescribed by his friends. In more
respects that one, was this a good resolve; for so completely had he
identified himself with college habits, things, and phrases, that
whenever he conversed, he became little short of unintelligible to the
vulgar—a difficulty not decreased by his peculiar pronunciation.
My round of presentation was just completed, when the pale figure in
light blue livery announced Counsellor Daly and dinner, for both came
fortunately together. Taking the post of honour, Miss Riley’s arm, I
followed Tom, who I soon perceived ruled the whole concern, as he led
the way with another ancient vestal in black satin and bugles. The long
procession wound its snake-like length down the narrow stair, and into
the dining-room, where at last we all got seated; and here let me
briefly vindicate the motives of my friend—should any unkind person be
found to impute to his selection of a residence, any base and
grovelling passion for gourmandaise, that day’s experience should be an
eternal vindication of him. The soup—alas! that I should so far
prostitute the word; for the black broth of Sparta was mock turtle in
comparison—retired to make way for a mass of beef, whose tenderness I
did not question; for it sank beneath the knife of the carver like a
feather bed—the skill of Saladin himself would have failed to divide
it. The fish was a most rebellious pike, and nearly killed every loyal
subject at table; and then down the sides were various comestibles of
chickens, with azure bosoms, and hams with hides like a rhinoceros;
covered dishes of decomposed vegetable matter, called spinach and
cabbage; potatoes arrayed in small masses, and browned, resembling
those ingenious architectural structures of mud, children raise in the
high ways, and call dirt-pies. Such were the chief constituents of the
“feed;” and such, I am bound to confess, waxed beautifully less under
the vigorous onslaught of the party.
The conversation soon became both loud and general. That happy
familiarity—which I had long believed to be the exclusive prerogative
of a military mess, where constant daily association sustains the
interest of the veriest trifles—I here found in a perfection I had not
anticipated, with this striking difference, that there was no absurd
deference to any existing code of etiquette in the conduct of the party
generally, each person quizzing his neighbour in the most free and easy
style imaginable, and all, evidently from long habit and conventional
usage, seeming to enjoy the practice exceedingly. Thus, droll
allusions, good stories, and smart repartees, fell thick as hail, and
twice as harmless, which any where else that I had ever heard of, would
assuredly have called for more explanations, and perhaps gunpowder, in
the morning, than usually are deemed agreeable. Here, however, they
knew better; and though the lawyer quizzed the doctor for never having
another patient than the house dog, all of whose arteries he had tied
in the course of the winter for practice—and the doctor retorted as
heavily, by showing that the lawyer’s practice had been other than
beneficial to those for whom he was concerned—his one client being
found guilty, mainly through his ingenious defence of him; yet they
never showed the slightest irritation—on the contrary, such little
playful badinage ever led to some friendly passages of taking wine
together, or in arrangements for a party to the “Dargle,” or
“Dunleary;” and thus went on the entire party, the young ladies darting
an occasion slight at their elders, who certainly returned the fire,
often with advantage; all uniting now and then, however, in one common
cause, an attack of the whole line upon Mrs. Clanfrizzle herself, for
the beef, or the mutton, or the fish, or the poultry—each of which was
sure to find some sturdy defamer, ready and willing to give evidence in
dispraise. Yet even these, and I thought them rather dangerous sallies,
led to no more violent results than dignified replies from the worthy
hostess, upon the goodness of her fare, and the evident satisfaction it
afforded while being eaten, if the appetites of the party were a test.
While this was at its height, Tom stooped behind my chair, and
whispered gently—
“This is good—isn’t it, eh?—life in a boarding-house—quite new to you;
but they are civilized now compared to what you’ll find them in the
drawing-room. When short whist for five-penny points sets in—then Greek
meets Greek, and we’ll have it.”
During all this melee tournament, I perceived that the worthy jib as he
would be called in the parlance of Trinity, Mr. Cudmore, remained
perfectly silent, and apparently terrified. The noise, the din of
voices, and the laughing, so completely addled him, that he was like
one in a very horrid dream. The attention with which I had observed
him, having been remarked by my friend O’Flaherty, he informed me that
the scholar, as he was called there, was then under a kind of cloud—an
adventure which occurred only two nights before, being too fresh in his
memory to permit him enjoying himself even to the limited extent it had
been his wont to do. As illustrative, not only of Mr. Cudmore, but the
life I have been speaking of, I may as well relate it.
Soon after Mr. Cudmore’s enlistment under the banners of the
Clanfrizzle, he had sought and found an asylum in the drawing-room of
the establishment, which promised, from its geographical relations, to
expose him less to the molestations of conversation than most other
parts of the room. This was a small recess beside the fire-place, not
uncommon in old-fashioned houses, and which, from its incapacity to
hold more than one, secured to the worthy recluse the privacy he longed
for; and here, among superannuated hearth-brushes, an old hand screen,
an asthmatic bellows, and a kettle-holder, sat the timid youth, “alone,
but in a crowd.” Not all the seductions of loo, limited to three pence,
nor even that most appropriately designated game,
beggar-my-neighbour—could withdraw him from his blest retreat. Like his
countryman, St. Kevin—my friend Petrie has ascertained that the saint
was a native of Tralee—he fled from the temptations of the world, and
the blandishments of the fair; but, alas! like the saint himself, the
“poor jib little knew
All that wily sex can do;”
For while he hugged himself in the security of his fortress, the web of
his destiny was weaving. So true is it, as he himself used, no less
pathetically than poetically to express it, “misfortune will find you
out, if ye were hid in a tay chest.”
It happened that in Mrs. Clanfrizzle’s establishment, the “enfant
bleu,” already mentioned, was the only individual of his sex retained;
and without for a moment disparaging the ability or attentions of this
gifted person, yet it may reasonably be credited, that in waiting on a
party of twenty-five or thirty persons at dinner, all of whom he had
admitted as porter, and announced as maitre d’hotel, with the
subsequent detail of his duties in the drawing-room, that Peter, blue
Peter—his boarding-house soubriquet—not enjoying the bird-like
privilege of “being in two places at once,” gave one rather the
impression of a person of hasty and fidgetty habits—for which nervous
tendency the treatment he underwent was certainly injudicious—it being
the invariable custom for each guest to put his services in
requisition, perfectly irrespective of all other claims upon him, from
whatsoever quarter coming—and then, at the precise moment that the
luckless valet was snuffing the candles, he was abused by one for not
bringing coal; by another for having carried off his tea-cup, sent on
an expedition for sugar; by a third for having left the door open,
which he had never been near; and so on to the end of the chapter.
It chanced that a few evenings previous to my appearance at the house,
this indefatigable Caleb was ministering as usual to the various and
discrepant wants of the large party assembled in the drawing-room. With
his wonted alacrity he had withdrawn from their obscure retreat against
the wall, sundry little tables, destined for the players at whist, or
“spoil five”—the popular game of the establishment. With a dexterity
that savoured much of a stage education, he had arranged the candles,
the cards, the counters; he had poked the fire, settled the stool for
Miss Riley’s august feet, and was busily engaged in changing five
shillings into small silver for a desperate victim of loo—when Mrs.
Clanfrizzle’s third, and, as it appeared, last time, of asking for the
kettle smote upon his ear. His loyalty would have induced him at once
to desert every thing on such an occasion; but the other party engaged,
held him fast, saying—
“Never mind HER, Peter—you have sixpence more to give me.”
Poor Peter rummaged one pocket, then another—discovering at last three
pence in copper, and some farthings, with which he seemed endeavouring
to make a composition with his creditor for twelve shillings in the
pound; when Mrs. Clan’s patience finally becoming exhausted, she turned
towards Mr. Cudmore, the only unemployed person she could perceive, and
with her blandest smile said,
“Mr. Cudmore, may I take the liberty of requesting you would hand me
the kettle beside you.”
Now, though the kettle aforesaid was, as the hostess very properly
observed, beside him, yet the fact that in complying with the demand,
it was necessary for the bashful youth to leave the recess he occupied,
and, with the kettle, proceed to walk half across the room—there to
perform certain manual operations requiring skill and presence of mind,
before a large and crowded assembly—was horror to the mind of the poor
Jib; and he would nearly as soon have acceded to a desire to dance a
hornpipe, if such had been suggested as the wish of the company.
However, there was nothing for it; and summoning up all his
nerve—knitting his brows—clenching his teeth, like one prepared to “do
or die,” he seized the hissing cauldron, and strode through the room,
like the personified genius of steam, very much to the alarm of all the
old ladies in the vicinity, whose tasteful drapery benefitted but
little from his progress. Yet he felt but little of all this; he had
brought up his courage to the sticking place, and he was absolutely
half unconscious of the whole scene before him; nor was it till some
kind mediator had seized his arm, while another drew him back by the
skirts of the coat, that he desisted from the deluge of hot water, with
which, having filled the tea-pot, he proceeded to swamp every thing
else upon the tray, in his unfortunate abstraction. Mrs. Clanfrizzle
screamed—the old ladies accompanied her—the young ones tittered—the men
laughed—and, in a word, poor Cudmore, perfectly unconscious of any
thing extraordinary, felt himself the admired of all admirers,—very
little, it is true, to his own satisfaction. After some few minutes
exposure to these eclats de rire, he succeeded in depositing the source
of his griefs within the fender, and once more retired to his
sanctuary,—having registered a vow, which, should I speak it, would
forfeit his every claim to gallantry for ever.
Whether in the vow aforesaid Mr. Cudmore had only been engaged in that
species of tesselating which furnishes the pavement so celebrated in
the lower regions, I know not; but true it is, that he retired that
night to his chamber very much discomfited at his debut in the great
world, and half disposed to believe that nature had neither intended
him for a Brummel nor a D’Orsay. While he was ruminating on such
matters, he was joined by O’Flaherty, with whom he had been always more
intimate than any other inmate of the house—Tom’s tact having entirely
concealed what the manners of the others too plainly evinced, the
perfect appreciation of the student’s oddity and singularity. After
some few observations on general matters, O’Flaherty began with a tone
of some seriousness to express towards Cudmore the warm interest he had
ever taken in him, since his first coming among them; his great anxiety
for his welfare, and his firm resolve that no chance or casual
inattention to mere ceremonial observances on his part should ever be
seized on by the other guests as a ground for detraction or an excuse
for ridicule of him.
“Rely upon it, my dear boy,” said he, “I have watched over you like a
parent; and having partly foreseen that something like this affair of
to-night would take place sooner or later”—
“What affair?” said Cudmore—his eyes staring half out of his head.
“That business of the kettle.”
“Kett—el. The kettle! What of that?” said Cudmore.
“What of it? Why, if you don’t feel it, I am sure it is not my duty to
remind you; only”—
“Feel it—oh, yes. I saw them laughing, because I spilled the water over
old Mrs. Jones, or something of that sort.”
“No, no, my dear young friend, they were not laughing at that—their
mirth had another object.”
“What the devil was it at, then?”
“You don’t know, don’t you?”
“No; I really do not.”
“Nor can’t guess—eh?”
“Confound me if I can.”
“Well. I see, Mr. Cudmore, you are really too innocent for these
people. But come—it shall never be said that youth and inexperience
ever suffered from the unworthy ridicule and cold sarcasm of the base
world, while Tom O’Flaherty stood by a spectator.
“Sir,” said Tom, striking his hand with energy on the table, and
darting a look of fiery indignation from his eye, “Sir, you were this
night trepanned—yes, sir, vilely, shamefully trepanned—I repeat the
expression—into the performance of a menial office—an office so
degrading, so offensive, so unbecoming the rank, the station, and the
habits of gentlemen, my very blood recoils when I only think of the
indignity.”
The expression of increasing wonder and surprise depicted in Mr.
Cudmore’s face at these words, my friend Phiz might convey—I cannot
venture to describe it—suffice it to say, that even O’Flaherty himself
found it difficult to avoid a burst of laughter, as he looked at him
and resumed.
“Witnessing, as I did, the entire occurrence; feeling deeply for the
inexperience which the heartless worldlings had dared to trample upon,
I resolved to stand by you, and here I am come for that purpose.”
“Well, but what in the devil’s name have I done all this time?”
“What! are you still ignorant?—is it possible? Did you not hand the
kettle from the fire-place, and fill the tea-pot?—answer me that!”
“I did,” said Cudmore, with a voice already becoming tremulous.
“Is that the duty of a gentleman?—answer me that.”
A dead pause stood in place of a reply, while Tom proceeded—
“Did you ever hear any one ask me, or Counsellor Daly, or Mr. Fogarty,
or any other person to do so?—answer me that.”
“No; never” muttered Cudmore, with a sinking spirit.
“Well then why may I ask, were you selected for an office that by your
own confession, no one else would stoop to perform? I’ll tell you,
because from your youth and inexperience, your innocence was deemed a
fit victim to the heartless sneers of a cold and unfeeling world.” And
here Tom broke forth into a very beautiful apostrophe, beginning—
“Oh, virtue!” (this I am unfortunately unable to present to my readers;
and must only assure them that it was a very faithful imitation of the
well-known one delivered by Burke in the case of Warren Hastings,) and
concluding with an exhortation to Cudmore to wipe out the stain of his
wounded honour, by repelling with indignation the slightest future
attempt at such an insult.
This done, O’Flaherty retired, leaving Cudmore to dig among Greek
roots, and chew over the cud of his misfortune. Punctual to the time
and place, that same evening beheld the injured Cudmore resume his
wonted corner, pretty much with the feeling with which a forlorn hope
stands match in hand to ignite the train destined to explode with ruin
to thousands—himself perhaps amongst the number: there he sat with a
brain as burning, and a heart as excited, as though, instead of sipping
his bohea beside a sea-coal fire, he was that instant trembling beneath
the frown of Dr. Elrington, for the blunders in his Latin theme, and
what terror to the mind of a “Jib” can equal that one?
As luck would have it, this was a company night in the boarding-house.
Various young ladies in long blue sashes, and very broad ribbon
sandals, paraded the rooms, chatting gaily with very distinguished
looking young gentlemen, with gold brooches, and party-coloured inside
waistcoats; sundry elderly ladies sat at card-tables, discussing the
“lost honour by an odd trick they played,” with heads as large as those
of Jack or Jill in the pantomime; spruce clerks in public offices,
(whose vocation the expansive tendency of the right ear, from long
pen-carrying, betokened) discussed fashion, “and the musical glasses”
to some very over-dressed married ladies, who preferred flirting to
five-and-ten. The tea-table, over which the amiable hostess presided,
had also its standing votaries: mostly grave parliamentary-looking
gentlemen, with powdered heads, and very long-waisted black coats,
among whom the Sir Oracle was a functionary of his Majesty’s High Court
of Chancery, though I have reason to believe, not, Lord Manners:
meanwhile, in all parts of the room might be seen Blue Peter,
distributing tea, coffee, and biscuit, and occasionally interchanging a
joke with the dwellers in the house. While all these pleasing
occupations proceeded, the hour of Cudmore’s trial was approaching. The
tea-pot which had stood the attack of fourteen cups without flinching,
at last began to fail, and discovered to the prying eyes of Mrs.
Clanfrizzle, nothing but an olive-coloured deposit of soft matter,
closely analogous in appearance and chemical property to the residuary
precipitate in a drained fish-pond; she put down the lid with a gentle
sigh and turning towards the fire bestowed one of her very blandest and
most captivating looks on Mr. Cudmore, saying—as plainly as looks could
say—“Cudmore, you’re wanting.” Whether the youth did, or did not
understand, I am unable to record: I can only say, the appeal was made
without acknowledgment. Mrs. Clanfrizzle again essayed, and by a little
masonic movement of her hand to the tea-pot, and a sly glance at the
hob, intimated her wish—still hopelessly; at last there was nothing for
it but speaking; and she donned her very softest voice, and most
persuasive tone, saying—
“Mr. Cudmore, I am really very troublesome: will you permit me to ask
you?”—
“Is it for the kettle, ma’am?” said Cudmore, with a voice that startled
the whole room, disconcerting three whist parties, and so absorbing the
attention of the people at loo, that the pool disappeared without any
one being able to account for the circumstance.
“Is it for the kettle, ma’am?”
“If you will be so very kind,” lisped the hostess.
“Well, then, upon my conscience, you are impudent,” said Cudmore, with
his face crimsoned to the ears, and his eyes flashing fire.
“Why, Mr. Cudmore,” began the lady, “why, really, this is so strange.
Why sir, what can you mean?”
“Just that,” said the imperturbable jib, who now that his courage was
up, dared every thing.
“But sir, you must surely have misunderstood me. I only asked for the
kettle, Mr. Cudmore.”
“The devil a more,” said Cud, with a sneer.
“Well, then, of course”—
“Well, then, I’ll tell you, of course,” said he, repeating her words;
“the sorrow taste of the kettle, I’ll give you. Call you own skip—Blue
Pether there—damn me, if I’ll be your skip any longer.”
For the uninitiated I have only to add, that “skip” is the Trinity
College appellation for servant, which was therefore employed by Mr.
Cudmore, on this occasion, as expressing more contemptuously his sense
of the degradation of the office attempted to be put upon him. Having
already informed my reader on some particulars of the company, I leave
him to suppose how Mr. Cudmore’s speech was received. Whist itself was
at an end for that evening, and nothing but laughter, long, loud, and
reiterated, burst from every corner of the room for hours after.
As I have so far travelled out of the record of my own peculiar
confessions, as to give a leaf from what might one day form the matter
of Mr. Cudmore’s, I must now make the only amende in my power, by
honestly narrating, that short as my visit was to the classic precincts
of this agreeable establishment, I did not escape without exciting my
share of ridicule, though, I certainly had not the worst of the joke,
and may, therefore, with better grace tell the story, which, happily
for my readers, is a very brief one. A custom prevailed in Mrs.
Clanfrizzle’s household, which from my unhappy ignorance of
boarding-houses, I am unable to predicate if it belong to the genera at
large, or this one specimen in particular, however, it is a
sufficiently curious fact, even though thereby hang no tale, for my
stating it here. The decanters on the dinner-table were never labelled,
with their more appropriate designation of contents, whether claret,
sherry, or port, but with the names of their respective owners, it
being a matter of much less consequence that any individual at table
should mix his wine, by pouring “port upon madeira,” than commit the
truly legal offence of appropriating to his own use and benefit, even
by mistake, his neighbour’s bottle. However well the system may work
among the regular members of the “domestic circle,” and I am assured
that it does succeed extremely—to the newly arrived guest, or
uninitiated visitor, the affair is perplexing, and leads occasionally
to awkward results.
It so chanced, from my friend O’Flaherty’s habitual position at the
foot of the table, and my post of honour near the head, that on the
first day of my appearing there, the distance between us, not only
precluded all possible intercourse, but any of those gentle hints as to
habits and customs, a new arrival looks for at the hands of his better
informed friend. The only mode of recognition, to prove that we
belonged to each other, being by that excellent and truly English
custom of drinking wine together, Tom seized the first idle moment from
his avocation as carver to say,
“Lorrequer, a glass of wine with you.”
Having, of course, acceded, he again asked,
“What wine do you drink?” intending thereby, as I afterwards learned,
to send me from his end of the table, what wine I selected. Not
conceiving the object of the inquiry, and having hitherto without
hesitation helped myself from the decanter, which bore some faint
resemblance to sherry, I immediately turned for correct information to
the bottle itself, upon whose slender neck was ticketed the usual slip
of paper. My endeavours to decypher the writing occupied time
sufficient again to make O’Flaherty ask,
“Well, Harry, I’m waiting for you. Will you have port?”
“No, I thank you,” I replied, having by this revealed the inscription.
“No, I thank you; I’ll just stick to my old friend here, Bob M’Grotty;”
for thus I rendered familiarly the name of Rt. M’Grotty on the
decanter, and which I in my ignorance believed to be the boarding-house
soubriquet for bad sherry. That Mr. M’Grotty himself little relished my
familiarity with either his name or property I had a very decisive
proof, for turning round upon his chair, and surveying my person from
head to foot with a look of fiery wrath, he thundered out in very broad
Scotch,
“And by my saul, my freend, ye may just as weel finish it noo, for deil
a glass o’ his ain wine did Bob M’Grotty, as ye ca’ him, swallow this
day.”
The convulsion of laughter into which my blunder and the Scotchman’s
passion threw the whole board, lasted till the cloth was withdrawn, and
the ladies had retired to the drawing-room, the only individual at
table not relishing the mistake being the injured proprietor of the
bottle, who was too proud to accept reparation from my friend’s
decanter, and would scarcely condescend to open his lips during the
evening; notwithstanding which display of honest indignation, we
contrived to become exceedingly merry and jocose, most of the party
communicating little episodes of their life, in which, it is true, they
frequently figured in situations that nothing but their native and
natural candour would venture to avow. One story I was considerably
amused at; it was told by the counsellor, Mr. Daly, in illustration of
the difficulty of rising at the bar, and which, as showing his own mode
of obviating the delay that young professional men submit to from hard
necessity, as well as in evidence of his strictly legal turn, I shall
certainly recount, one of these days, for the edification of the junior
bar.