d gloves, knee
shorts, and silks, with a shirt-frill in his bosom, curls on his head,
and a silver staff in his hand, whom we had no difficulty in recognising
as the officer of the Court. The latter, indeed, speedily set our mind
at rest upon this point, for, advancing to our elbow, and opening a
conversation forthwith, he had communicated to us, in less than five
minutes, that he was the apparitor, and the other the court-keeper; that
this was the Arches Court, and therefore the counsel wore red gowns, and
the proctors fur collars; and that when the other Courts sat there, they
didn't wear red gowns or fur collars either; with many other scraps of
intelligence equally interesting. Besides these two officers, there was
a little thin old man, with long grizzly hair, crouched in a remote
corner, whose duty, our communicative friend informed us, was to ring a
large hand-bell when the Court opened in the morning, and who, for aught
his appearance betokened to the contrary, might have been similarly
employed for the last two centuries at least.

The red-faced gentleman in the tortoise-shell spectacles had got all the
talk to himself just then, and very well he was doing it, too, only he
spoke very fast, but that was habit; and rather thick, but that was good
living. So we had plenty of time to look about us. There was one
individual who amused us mightily. This was one of the bewigged
gentlemen in the red robes, who was straddling before the fire in the
centre of the Court, in the attitude of the brazen Colossus, to the
complete exclusion of everybody else. He had gathered up his robe
behind, in much the same manner as a slovenly woman would her petticoats
on a very dirty day, in order that he might feel the full warmth of the
fire. His wig was put on all awry, with the tail straggling about his
neck; his scanty grey trousers and short black gaiters, made in the worst
possible style, imported an additional inelegant appearance to his
uncouth person; and his limp, badly-starched shirt-collar almost obscured
his eyes. We shall never be able to claim any credit as a physiognomist
again, for, after a careful scrutiny of this gentleman's countenance, we
had come to the conclusion that it bespoke nothing but conceit and
silliness, when our friend with the silver staff whispered in our ear
that he was no other than a doctor of civil law, and heaven knows what
besides. So of course we were mistaken, and he must be a very tal