ges or
arenae, where the struggles take place. If possible you ought to go
early, so that you can watch the animals massing. Lawyers, as I have had
occasion to observe before, are the most long-suffering profession in
the country, and the things they do in the Bear-Garden they have to do
in the luncheon-hour, or rather in the luncheon half-hour, between
half-past one and two.

This accounts perhaps for the extreme frenzy of the proceedings. They
hurry in a frenzy up the back-stairs about 1.25, and they pace up and
down in a frenzy till half-past one. There are all sorts of bears, most
of them rather seedy old bears, with shaggy and unkempt coats. These are
solicitors' clerks, and they all come straight out of DICKENS. They have
shiny little private-school handbags, each inherited, no doubt, through
a long line of ancestral solicitors' clerks; and they all have the
draggled sort of moustache that tells you when it is going to rain.
While they are pacing up and down the arena they all try to get rid of
these moustaches by pulling violently at alternate ends; but the only
result is to make it look more like rain than ever.

Some of the bears are robust old bears, with well-kept coats and loud
roars; these are solicitors' clerks too, only better fed; or else they
are real solicitors. And a few of the bears are perky young
creatures--in barrister's robes, either for the first time, when they
look very self-conscious, or for the second time, when they look very
self-confident. All the bears are telling each other about their cases.
They are saying, "We are a deceased wife's sister suing _in forma
pauperis_," or "I am a discharged bankrupt, three times convicted of
perjury, but I am claiming damages under the Diseases of Pigs Act,
1862," or "You are the crew of a merchant-ship and we are the editor of
a newspaper." Just at first it is rather disturbing to hear snatches of
conversation like that, but there is no real cause for alarm; they are
only identifying themselves with the interests of their clients; and,
when one realises that, one is rather touched.

At long last one of the keepers at the entrance to the small cages
begins to shout very loudly. It is not at all clear what he is shouting,
but apparently it is the pet-names of the bears, for there is a wild
rush for the various cages. Across the middle of the cage a stout
barricade has been erected, and behind the barricade sits the Master,
pale but defiant. Masters in