ction?
To which he has no reply ready.

3.30.--The jury are still delayed by the two stouts. I have just
attempted to chat over the affair with JESSIMINA and Madame MANKLETOW,
and ascertain whether the former will not accept myself at the eleventh
hour as payment in full of all damages, costs, &c. Mrs M. replies that
the jurymen are notoriously in favour of her daughter, and that she
would as soon see her in gates of grave as the bride of a black man. On
closer approach to JESSIMINA, I have made the rather disenchanting
discovery that she has rendered her nose lilac from too much superfluity
of face-powder. Perhaps, after all, the damages may not be so very....
The jury are coming back. Hon'ble Judge is fetched hurriedly.... Mister
Associate asks: "Have you agreed upon your verdict?" Answered that they
have. "Do they find for plaintiff or defendant?" "For plaintiff." And
the damages? "_Twenty-five Thou!!!_" My stars! O Gemini! Who'd have
thought it? My Progenitor will never pay the piper for such an
atrociously cacophonous tune.... I am a done-for!

3.35.--All right. I was deceived by aural incorrectness. It is not
twenty-five _thou._--but twenty-five _pounds_!

3.45.--Hiphussar! Cockadoodledoo! A mere bite from a flea!... The
plaintiff has fallen into hystericals from disappointed
avariciousness.... There is some idle talk about costs following the
event, and certifying for a special jury--a luxury for which it seems I
am not to fork out. The case is over.

* * * * *

Outside in the corridor and hall I was the cynosure of neighbouring
eyes, and vociferously applauded as a "good old nigger," and told that
"now they _shouldn't_ be long," though for what else they were waiting I
could not learn. Madame MANKLETOW did overtake me near the doors and
invite me to tea and talk in a coffee and bun emporium, hinting that she
had recently misunderstood the state of her daughter's heart, and that
she had in reality been ardently desirous from the first to accept my
offer. To which I replied that the gates of grave were now hermetically
closed, and that the plaintiff, like the fabulous canine, had thrown
away the meaty bone of a first-class opportunity in exchange for the
rather flimsy and shadowy form of a twenty-five pound note. But, as a
chivalrous, I refrained from saying that I had been thus totally put off
by an over-powdered nose.

Then I proceeded, amidst cheering populaces, up Chancery Lane to