absence you have had to apply to me (the defendant) for sketches
of the scene in Court. What a chance Mr. Calderon has missed for a
companion picture to the one he is painting of another great legal
battle--the Parnell Commission! A picture in next year's Royal Academy
of the trial between two art critics is surely worthy to be handed down
to posterity, say, in the Council Room of the Royal Academy.

"That the subject is not a picturesque one, I admit, but I can offer the
painter an historical incident connected with it that should recommend
itself. We all know that Sir Francis Drake playing at bowls when the
Spanish Armada was sighted is a favourite theme with artists. In this
case, although there is nothing Spanish about it, there is a parallel
incident. I was, like Drake, by the sad sea waves, not playing at bowls,
but sketching a common, or garden, donkey, when a telegram arrived from
London to say that the great trial was in sight, and my presence was
demanded at the Royal Courts of Justice (Court 3) at eleven o'clock the
following morning. Let it be recorded that my nerve was equal to the
great Admiral's--I finished the drawing of that donkey.

[Illustration: DEFENDANT.]

"The morning was a gloomy one, and no doubt the weather had something to
do with the solemn tone of the proceedings. A collection of briefless
barristers, irritated jurymen, and wet umbrellas in dark corridors is
not enlivening; and when you arrive, to find the Court crowded, and you
happen to be, like me, considerably under the medium height, and rather
broad in proportion, it is difficult to come up at all, much less
smiling, to the feet of justice. Here is a subject for a _Punch_ puzzle.
The defendant--how is he to get into Court? It is a mystery to me how I
managed to squeeze myself through. I stuck to my hat, and my hat pulled
me through (alas, a new one!). The hat was more rubbed the wrong way by
the trial than was its wearer; but it is an item in the expense of legal
warfare that ought not to be forgotten by the taxing master. However, I
found myself sitting next my consulter and friend, the 'sage of Ely
Place,' in good time. Although a case is down to be tried in a
particular Court, it may be transferred to another Court at a moment's
notice. This is bewildering to the parties interested and, from what I
saw, irritating to the legal fraternity. Tomkins _v._ Snooks is down for
trial, Court 2. The legal call-boys bustle in the counsel and