A junior who will wear his gown straight, and not pretend that intense
preoccupation over dummy briefs prevents him from knowing that it is
off one shoulder.
A judge who can resist the temptation to utter feeble witticisms, and
to fall asleep.
A witness who answers questions, and incidentally tells the truth.
A jury who do not look extremely silly, and ridiculously
self-conscious, when directly addressed or appealed to by counsel; or
one that really understands that the judge’s politeness is only another
and subtle form of self-glorification.
A K.C. who is not “eminent,” who does not behave “nobly,” and who can
avoid the formula “I suggest to you,” in cross-examination; or one that
does not thunder from a lofty and inaccessible moral altitude so soon
as a nervous witness blunders or contradicts himself.
An usher who does not try to induce the general public, especially
the female portion thereof, to mistake him for the Lord Chancellor.
A solicitor who does not strive to appear _coram populo_ on terms of
quite unnecessarily familiar intercourse with his leading counsel.
An articled clerk who does not dress beyond his thirty shillings
a-week, and think that the whole court is lost in speculation as to the
identity of that distinguished-looking young man.
An associate who does not go into ecstasies of merriment over every
joke or _obiter dictum_ from the Bench.
Anybody who does not give loud expression to the opinion, at the
nearest bar when the court rises, that he could have managed the case
for either or both sides infinitely better than the counsel engaged.
A court-house whose atmosphere is pleasant and invigorating after the
court has sat for fifteen minutes.
(Anyone concerned who, on reading these remarks in print, will think
that the cap can, by any _scintilla_ of possibility, fit himself.)
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Wretched-looking Messenger._ “Beg pardon, Mr. Brown,
it’s come at larst! I’m _entirely_ dependent on myself. My wife’s been
and got a separation order!”]
* * * * *
[Illustration: In order to deaden the sense of smell, second-hand
clothes-pegs will be used by the bench and the bar.]
[Illustration: Lords Justices Bowen and Fry prepared to break the
windows of the court, and relieve the asphyxiated bar.]