despatch and celerity--though I sometimes regret
that I did not procure a solicitor of a more senile and sympathetic
disposition.

Assuredly had I done so, such an one would not, after perusing my
Statement of Defence--a most magnificently voluminous document of over
fifty folios, crammed and stuffed with satirical hits and sideblows, and
pathetic appeals for the Bench's indulgence, and replete with familiar
quotations from best classical and continental authors--such an one, I
say, would not have split his sides with disrespectful chucklings,
thrown my composition into a wasted paper receptacle, and proceeded to
knock off a meagre substitute of his own, containing a very few dry bald
paragraphs, in the inadequately brief space of under the hour.

Such, however, was Mr SMARTLE'S course; and the sole consolation is
that, owing to his unprofessional precipitation, the action was set down
for trial previously to the commencement of the Long Vacation, and my
case may come on some time next Term, and I be put out of my misery at
the close of the year.

My aforesaid legal adviser, finding that I adhered with the tenacity of
bird-slime to my determination to conduct my case in person, did hint
in no ambiguous language, that it might perhaps be even better for me to
do the guy next November to my native land, and snip my fingers then
from a safe distance at the plaintiff.

But it is not my practice to exhibit a white feather (except when
prostrated by severe bodily panics), and I am consumed by an ardent
impatience to air my fluencies and legal learnedness before the
publicity of a London Law Court.

Now, begone dull care! for I am to dismiss all litigious thoughts till
October or November next, and become a _Dolce far niente_, chasing the
deer with my heart in the Highlands.

My volunteering acquaintance, by the way, has declined to lend me his
rifle, on the transparent pretence that it was contrary to regulations,
and that it was not the _bon ton_ to pursue grouse-birds and the like
with so war-like a weapon.

So, on young HOWARD'S advice, I made the purchase from a pawnbroker of a
lethal instrument, provided with a duplicate bore, so that, should a
bird happen by any chance to escape my first barrel, the second will
infallibly make him bite the dust.

I have also purchased some cartridges of a very pleasing colour, a
hunting knife, and a shot belt and pouch, and if I can only procure some
inexpensive kind of sporti