g in, I
suppose? You must be driving a pretty smart trade to judge by them 'ere
bundles."

"Pretty well;" I replied, "when my standing at the bar is considered, I
have no great reason to complain."

The old fellow looked at me with so quizzical an expression, that I could
hardly play the hypocrite longer.

"I'll trouble you for that packet," he said; and, remorselessly clutching
a bundle made up with red tape to resemble a process, he took out a
written pleading, to which the signature of a counsel, now ten years in
the grave, was appended.

"What a devil of a time these lawsuits last!" remarked Mr Dodger,
unfolding another document. Worse and worse! It was the juvenile
production of a judge in the Inner-House. I had nothing for it but to make
a clean breast.

"The fact is, my dear uncle," said I, "these papers are just part of the
furniture of a lawyer's room. It would never do, you know, to have an
empty table, if an agent _should_ happen to come in; but the real truth of
the matter is, that the only agents I know are lads with as little
business as myself, who sometimes look in of an evening to solace
themselves with a cigar."

"I knew it, Fred--I knew it!" said Scripio, rubbing his hands, as if he
thought it a remarkably good joke; "there are tricks in all trades, my
boy, and the American blood will break out. But you can't do for me,
though, you cunning young villain. Oh no! though you wanted to try it on."
And he chuckled as heartily as any of Mr Dickens' characters in the
Christmas Carol.

"So you ar'n't making a farthing, Freddy?" he resumed; "I'm glad of it.
You'll never grease your coach-wheels here. Where's the thousand pounds
that were lent over the Invertumblers estate?"

"Mr Constat, the agent of old M'Alcohol, paid it to me about three months
ago," replied I, rather astonished at the question, which seemed to have
no connexion with the former subject. "I have put it into the National
Bank."

"Two per cent? Pshaw--trash!" said my uncle. "Here, look at this;" and he
shoved a printed paper into my hands.

It was headed, "Prospectus of the Grand Union Biggleswade, Puddockfield,
and Pedlington Railway, in 50,000 shares of L20 each. Deposit L1 on each
share." If the line had run through the garden of Eden, supposing that
place to have furnished a large passenger traffic besides agricultural
produce, with London at one terminus and Pekin at the other, the
description could not have been more flatte