lient, and reminded him that there was a
good deal of business to do, as he proposed to give the young counsel
an outline of the state of the conjoined process, with a view to letting
him into the merits of the cause, disencumbered from the points of form.
'I have made a short abbreviate, Mr. Peebles,' said he; 'having sat up
late last night, and employed much of this morning in wading through
these papers, to save Alan some trouble, and I am now about to state the
result.'

'I will state it myself,' said Peter, breaking in without reverence upon
his solicitor.

'No, by no means,' said my father; 'I am your agent for the time.'

'Mine eleventh in number,' said Peter; 'I have a new one every year; I
wish I could get a new coat as regularly.'

'Your agent for the time,' resumed my father; 'and you, who are
acquainted with the forms, know that the client states the cause to the
agent--the agent to the counsel'--

'The counsel to the Lord Ordinary,' continued Peter, once set a-going,
like the peal of an alarm clock, 'the Ordinary to the Inner House, the
President to the Bench. It is just like the rope to the man, the man to
the ox, the ox to the water, the water to the fire'--

'Hush, for Heaven's sake, Mr. Peebles,' said my father, cutting his
recitation short; 'time wears on--we must get to business--you must
not interrupt the court, you know.--Hem, hem! From this abbreviate it
appears'--

'Before you begin,' said Peter Peebles 'I'll thank you to order me a
morsel of bread and cheese, or some cauld meat, or broth, or the like
alimentary provision; I was so anxious to see your son, that I could not
eat a mouthful of dinner.'

Heartily glad, I believe, to have so good a chance of stopping his
client's mouth effectually, my father ordered some cold meat; to which
James Wilkinson, for the honour of the house, was about to add the
brandy bottle, which remained on the sideboard, but, at a wink from my
father, supplied its place with small beer. Peter charged the provisions
with the rapacity of a famished lion; and so well did the diversion
engage him, that though, while my father stated the case, he looked at
him repeatedly, as if he meant to interrupt his statement, yet he always
found more agreeable employment for his mouth, and returned to the
cold beef with an avidity which convinced me he had not had such an
opportunity for many a day of satiating his appetite. Omitting much
formal phraseology, and many legal det