d boxes and clerks' desks, as are
apparently necessary to attorneys in general. Three clerks he did
employ, who sat in one room, and he himself sat in that behind
it. So at least they sat when they were to be found at the parent
establishment; but, as regarded the attorney himself and his senior
assistant, the work of their lives was carried on chiefly in the
courts of law. The room in which Mr. Aram was now sitting was
furnished with much more attention to comfort than is usual in
lawyers' chambers. Mr. Chaffanbrass was at present lying, with his
feet up, on a sofa against the wall, in a position of comfort never
attained by him elsewhere till the after-dinner hours had come to
him; and Mr. Aram himself filled an easy lounging-chair. Some few law
papers there were scattered on the library table, but none of those
piles of dusty documents which give to a stranger, on entering an
ordinary attorney's room, so terrible an idea of the difficulty and
dreariness of the profession. There were no tin boxes with old names
labelled on them; there were no piles of letters, and no pigeon-holes
loaded with old memoranda. On the whole Mr. Aram's private room was
smart and attractive; though, like himself, it had an air rather of
pretence than of steady and assured well-being.

It is not quite the thing for a barrister to wait upon an attorney,
and therefore it must not be supposed that Mr. Chaffanbrass had come
to Mr. Aram with any view to immediate business; but nevertheless, as
the two men understood each other, they could say what they had to
say as to this case of Lady Mason's, although their present positions
were somewhat irregular. They were both to meet Mr. Furnival and
Felix Graham on that afternoon in Mr. Furnival's chambers with
reference to the division of those labours which were to be commenced
at Alston on the day but one following, and they both thought that
it might be as well that they should say a word to each other on the
subject before they went there.

"I suppose you know nothing about the panel down there, eh?" said
Chaffanbrass.

"Well, I have made some inquiries; but I don't think there's
anything especial to know;--nothing that matters. If I were you, Mr.
Chaffanbrass, I wouldn't have any Hamworth people on the jury, for
they say that a prophet is never a prophet in his own country."

"But do you know the Hamworth people?"

"Oh, yes; I can tell you as much as that. But I don't think it will
matter muc