ocks' kitchen and found the
bread-and-milk to be missing?"

"Yes," laughed Ridgwell, "I remember, 'Who stole my bread-and-milk?'"

"Well, that is the man who is going to try to make you and I and Sir
Simon pay the forfeits."

"How?" inquired Ridgwell.

"Well," suggested the Writer, "you know he will roar and shout and bang
the table with those red hands of his, and try to frighten everybody,
but the one thing to do is not to take the slightest notice of him. If
he annoys you, just smile; if he continues to annoy you, just glance
towards the Judge."

At this moment the voices of the ushers were heard shouting for silence
and order, and a profound stillness reigned inside the Court, for his
Lordship the Judge had entered through the doors leading to his room
and had taken his seat.

His scarlet robe only seemed to accentuate the colour of his puffy pink
cheeks, whilst the blackness of his little beady eyes and pointed nose
rather gave him the appearance of some overfed bird gorged to repletion
after a particularly satisfying meal, slightly apoplectic, with its
beak out of focus. The Judge, moreover, appeared to be afflicted with
a little wheezy asthmatical cough which attacked him at intervals as he
prepared to arrange his papers. The Clerk carefully placed a glass of
water upon the desk by his Lordship's side, but whether this was done
by way of a simple remedy for the Judge's wheezy little cough, or
merely as a gentle reminder that the case was likely to be a dry one,
cannot be guessed with any certainty. The preliminaries having been
arranged, the case having been called, the Ushers of the Court having
again shouted unnecessarily for silence, Sir Simon Gold having stared
at the Judge, and Mr. Learned Bore having stared at everybody, the
Judge having appeared to have closed his beady eyes in slumber, like a
broody hen upon a perch, Mr. Gentle Gammon rose and opened his case for
the plaintiff.

As Ridgwell observed in a whisper, "the Round Game had started." Mr.
Gentle Gammon opened his case in his proverbially gentle tones. It was
a silky voice, purring in its gentleness, but with a curious power of
penetrating every corner of the over-crowded Court; it insisted even
whilst it soothed, and its effect upon his Lordship the Judge seemed to
be most pleasing, as he immediately appeared to nod to it as if in
greeting. Mr. Gentle Gammon related to the Court how his client,
holding the highest Civic position in