it during the four different days he had been obliged to come to
town for the first time in his life. Had waited from an early hour
each morning for several days until his name was called, when the
different Jury lists were made up. Obliged to wait so many days on
account of the names being taken alphabetically on the List, his
beginning with Y, his name being Yobb.

After this brief interlude his Lordship appeared to rouse himself up
and proceeded to sum up at one and the same time. His Lordship
commenced by observing that the case before them that day was without
exception the most extraordinary case that had ever come before him
since he had presided as a judge. The Learned Judge considered that
the child Ridgwell was exempt from--er--er--any deliberate desire to
pervert facts. This boy claimed that he had become the recipient of
some High Order of Imagination. He, the Learned Judge, had not the
remotest idea what this order meant, and he firmly believed nobody else
in Court had the faintest conception either concerning such a
possession. However, children would be children, which was
unfortunate, as he himself considered that children should be always,
ahem! grown up, yes, or nearly always. That is to say, as often as was
possible.

But the defendant, Mr. Learned Bore, had not even got the plea of
childishness to excuse some of the very reprehensible, if not flippant,
statements he had dared to make in the witness-box.

As a writer, the Learned Judge had always been led to believe that Mr.
Learned Bore was quite intelligent; as a witness, the Learned Judge
considered him deplorable. That a Lord Mayor of London, of London,
perhaps the most beautiful and dignified city in the world, with a few
architectural exceptions which the Learned Judge deplored,
but--ahem!--allowed; that the Lord Mayor of this City with the
glittering chains of that High Office still weighing down his neck, yet
wearing his crimson robes, which the Learned Judge hoped blushed for
him, as indeed his, the Learned Judge's own robes did, which he was at
that moment wearing. That this Lord Mayor should utter the still more
crimson falsehoods and fabrication of fairy folk, was well-nigh
inconceivable.

The Learned Judge could only suppose such a state of Civic imbecility
was due to the decadence of the times in which they had the misfortune
to live. It was the first indication that the downfall of London, like
that of Rome, and--er--ot