ntiff claims--

"(1.) That the court shall revoke probate of the said alleged will of the
said Jonathan Meeson, bearing date the 10th day of November, 1885,
granted to the defendants on the 21st day of May, 1886.

"(2.) A grant of letters of administration to the plaintiff with the
will executed on or subsequent to the 22nd day of December,1885, annexed.
(Signed) JAMES SHORT."

"May it please your Lordship." James began, again feeling dimly that he
had read enough pleadings, "the defendants have filed an answer pleading
that the will of the 22nd of December was not duly executed in accordance
with the statute, and that the testator did not know and approve its
contents, and an amended answer pleading that the said alleged will, if
executed, was obtained by the undue influence of Augusta Smithers"--and
once more his nervousness overcame him, and he pulled up with a jerk.

Then came another pause even more dreadful than the first.

The Judge took another note, as slowly as he could, and once more cleared
his throat; but poor James could not go on. He could only wish that he
might then and there expire, rather than face the hideous humiliation of
such a failure. But he would have failed, for his very brain was whirling
like that of a drunken man, had it not been for an occurrence that caused
him for ever after to bless the name of Fiddlestick, Q.C., as the name of
an eminent counsel is not often blessed in this ungrateful world. For
Fiddlestick, Q.C., who, it will be remembered, was one of the leaders for
the defendants, had been watching his unfortunate antagonist, till,
realising how sorry was his plight, a sense of pity filled his learned
breast. Perhaps he may have remembered some occasion, in the dim and
distant corner of the past, when he had suffered from a similar access of
frantic terror, or perhaps he may have been sorry to think that a young
man should lose such an unrivalled opportunity of making a name. Anyhow,
he did a noble act. As it happened, he was sitting at the right-hand
corner of the Queen's counsel seats, and piled upon the desk before him
was a tremendous mass of law reports which his clerk had arranged there,
containing cases to which it might become necessary to refer. Now, in the
presence of these law reports, Mr. Fiddlestick, in the goodness of his
heart, saw an opportunity of creating a diversion, and he created it with
a vengeance. For, throwing his weight suddenly forward as though by
acc