was natural in a case in which such enormous
sums were at stake, and in which the defendants were already men of vast
wealth, they found the flower of the entire talent and weight of the Bar
arrayed against them. Naturally Eustace felt, and so did Mr. James
Short--who, notwithstanding his pomposity and the technicality of his
talk, was both a clever and sensible man--that more counsel, men of
weight and experience, ought to be briefed; but there were absolutely no
funds for this purpose, nor was anybody likely to advance any upon the
security of a will tattooed upon a young lady's back. This was awkward,
because success in law proceedings so very often leans towards the
weightiest purse, and Judges however impartial, being but men after all,
are more apt to listen to an argument which is urged upon their attention
by an Attorney-General than on one advanced by an unknown junior.

However, there the fact was, and they had to make the best of it; and a
point in their favour was that the case, although of a most remarkable
nature, was comparatively simple, and did not involve any great mass of
documentary evidence.

CHAPTER XIX.

MEESON V. ADDISON AND ANOTHER.

The most wearisome times go by at last if only one lives to see the end
of them, and so it came to pass that at length on one fine morning about
a quarter to ten of the Law Courts' clock, that projects its ghastly
hideousness upon unoffending Fleet-street, Augusta, accompanied by
Eustace, Lady Holmhurst, and Mrs. Thomas, the wife of Captain Thomas, who
had come up from visiting her relatives in the Eastern counties in order
to give evidence, found herself standing in the big entrance to the new
Law Courts, feeling as though she would give five years of her life to be
anywhere else.

"This way, my dear," said Eustace; "Mr. John Short said that he would
meet us by the statue in the hall." Accordingly they passed into the
archway by the oak stand where the cause-lists are displayed. Augusta
glanced at them as she went, and the first thing that her eyes fell on
was "Probate and Divorce Division Court I., at 10.30, Meeson v. Addison
and Another," and the sight made her feel ill. In another moment they had
passed a policeman of gigantic size, "monstrum horrendum, informe,
ingens," who watches and wards the folding-doors through which so much
human learning, wretchedness, and worry pass day by day, and were
standing in the long, but narrow and ill-proportione