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own taken from him by the Benchers; driven to America by his creditors to get his living; not allowed to practise in the Supreme Court in America. At forty-five years of age his life had foundered. He returns to England--for what! Simply to find his recklessness had blasted his life, and then--? "Sometimes, in spite of _all_, I feel a moisture in my eye when I think of him. Had he been true to himself what a brilliant life was open to him! What a practice he had! Up to the last he told me that he turned L14,000 a year. He worked hard, very hard, and his gains went to ---- or to chicken-hazard! Poor fellow!" CHAPTER XIV. PETER RYLAND--THE REV. MR. FAKER AND THE WELSH WILL. I was retained at Hertford Assizes, with Peter Ryland as my leader, to prosecute a man for perjury, which was alleged to have been committed in an action in which a cantankerous man, who had once filled the office of High Sheriff for the county, was the prosecutor. Wealthy and disagreeable, he was nevertheless a henpecked tyrant. Mrs. Brown, his wife, was a witness for the prosecution in the alleged perjury--which was unfortunate for her husband, because she had the greatest knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the case; while Mr. Brown had the best knowledge of the probable quality of his wife's evidence. When we were in consultation and considering the nature of this evidence, and arranging the best mode of presenting our case to the jury, Brown interposed, and begged that Mr. Ryland should call Mrs. Brown as the _last_ witness, instead of first, which was the proper course. "Because," said he, "_if anything goes wrong during the trial or anything is wanting, Mrs. Brown will be quite ready to mop it all up_." This in a prosecution for _perjury_ was one of the boldest propositions I had ever heard. I need not say that good Mrs. Brown was called, as she ought to have been, first. The lady's mop was not in requisition at that stage of the trial, and the jury decided against her. I was sometimes in the Divorce Court, and old Jack Holker was generally my opponent. He was called "Long Odds." In one particular case I won some _eclat_. It is not related on that account, however, but simply in consequence of its remarkable incidents. No case is interesting unless it is outside the ordinary stock-in-trade of the Law Courts, and I think this was. The details are not worth telling, and I therefore pass them by. Cresswell was
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