d the depositions and sign the indictment. But
man, brief man, placed on a grand jury, and shut into a room without
the interference of a legal authority, delights to show himself off by
vain and superfluous inquiry. And hence it was that more than half an
hour elapsed before the foreman was seen returning into the court with
a trumpery indictment for larceny.

The interval had been usefully employed by the clerk of arraigns in
compiling a petty jury, something in this fashion:

The Clerk of Arraigns (_taking up a ticket, rather larger than a
visiting-card, from a heap before him_): 'John Henry Mullerall!' (_To
his clerk, a humble person in plebeian attire, who is popularly
believed to know a great deal more about the procedure than the judge
and the whole court put together_): 'Did he answer?' (_The clerk
hasn't heard him._) 'John--Henry' (_very loudly_) 'Mull---- Oh! I see
it's Muggle'--(_at the top of his voice_) 'Mugglewrath!' (_testily_)
'Are you there?'

John Henry Mugglewrath (_from a seat close by_): 'Here!'

The Clerk of Arraigns: 'Oh! there you are. Why _don't_ you gentlemen
answer when you hear your names? Go into the box, please.'

After about ten minutes of this sort of thing, twelve respectable
inhabitants of Mynyddshire were collected in the jury-box. Then they
all had to stand up while their names were read over a second time.
Then the clerk of arraigns counted his tickets to make sure he had
used up twelve, while his clerk counted the jurymen to see that they
came to the same number. Then all was ready to begin.

Meanwhile, those gentlemen at the counsel's table who rejoiced in
the possession of briefs made a great show of reading them, and
making copious notes and interlineations with pencils of different
colours--red, blue, and black. The public were greatly impressed as
they watched these young giants of intellect at their work. There they
were, mastering the most knotty points with ease, and constructing
ingenious arguments, doubtless, as they went along. One gentleman
excited the greatest interest, and quite threw his brethren into
the shade, by pushing aside his brief and drawing towards him one
of the loose sheets of foolscap which the kind forethought of
the authorities had provided, and beginning to write on it in an
abstracted manner. The onlookers deemed him to be wrestling with an
opinion on some weighty question bristling with legal difficulties.
They little guessed that he was addre