did not
say it.

"When I was a young man," said the baron, carrying on some
conversation which had been general at the table, "I never had an
opportunity of breaking my ribs out hunting."

"Perhaps if you had," said Augustus, "you might have used it with
more effect than my friend here, and have deprived the age of one
of its brightest lights, and the bench of one of its most splendid
ornaments."

"Hear, hear, hear!" said his father.

"Augustus is coming out in a new character," said his mother.

"I am heartily obliged to him," said the baron. "But, as I was saying
before, these sort of things never came in my way. If I remember
right, my father would have thought I was mad had I talked of going
out hunting. Did you hunt, Staveley?"

When the ladies were gone the four lawyers talked about law, though
they kept quite clear of that special trial which was going on at
Alston. Judge Staveley, as we know, had been at the Birmingham
congress; but not so his brother the baron. Baron Maltby, indeed,
thought but little of the Birmingham doings, and was inclined to be a
little hard upon his brother in that he had taken a part in it.

"I think that the matter is one open to discussion," said the host.

"Well, I hope so," said Graham. "At any rate I have heard no
arguments which ought to make us feel that our mouths are closed."

"Arguments on such a matter are worth nothing at all," said the
baron. "A man with what is called a logical turn of mind may prove
anything or disprove anything; but he never convinces anybody. On any
matter that is near to a man's heart, he is convinced by the tenour
of his own thoughts as he goes on living, not by the arguments of a
logician, or even by the eloquence of an orator. Talkers are apt to
think that if their listener cannot answer them they are bound to
give way; but non-talkers generally take a very different view of the
subject."

"But does that go to show that a question should not be ventilated?"
asked Felix.

"I don't mean to be uncivil," said the baron, "but of all words in
the language there is none which I dislike so much as that word
ventilation. A man given to ventilating subjects is worse than a man
who has a mission."

"Bores of that sort, however," said Graham, "will show themselves
from time to time and are not easily put down. Some one will have a
mission to reform our courts of law, and will do it too."

"I only hope it may not be in my time," said the baron.