detached himself on his clerk being announced in a whisper; and
repairing to the dining-room, there found Mr. Lowten and Job Trotter
looking very dim and shadowy by the light of a kitchen candle, which
the gentleman who condescended to appear in plush shorts and cottons
for a quarterly stipend, had, with a becoming contempt for the clerk
and all things appertaining to 'the office,' placed upon the table.

'Now Lowten,' said little Mr. Perker, shutting the door, 'what's the
matter? No important letter come in a parcel, is there?'

Do we not seem to be present? We can never pass by Russell Square
without calling up the scene. Note, too, the components of that legal
dinner. Poor Sir F. Lockwood used to declare that he relished "Mr.
Prosee, the eminent counsel," more than any one of Boz's legal circle.
Yet these five words are all we know of him. But Sir Frank had
imagination, and like some of us could read between the lines, or rather,
between the words. Here was a prominent member of the Bar--was he K.C.?
a triton among the minnows--therefore heading the table, listened to with
reverence as he told of the judges, possibly of "old Stareleigh's" last
exhibition of petulance--"with it's high time for him to go, etc." But
if he had not silk, why did not Perker retain him instead of the
incapable Phunky, whom he did _not_ ask on this occasion. "I gave the
chap a good chance, but he destroyed my whole case!" "Catch me letting
him put his legs under my mahogany." Among the guests was that
"small-eyed, peremptory young gentleman"--the special pleader's pupil.
What a capital sketch has Boz given of him. "He had written a _lively_
book about the law of demises, with a vast quantity of marginal notes and
references." He had come with his teacher, who was no doubt highly
deferental to Mr. Prosee, but enough, the peremptory young gentleman may
have partly "tackled" the great man on some point of practice. The good
country agencies must have gone home delighted with their evening.

But Mr. Prosee may be brought into somewhat closer communication with the
case. At Perker's dinner the gentlemen had gone up to the drawing room,
when Perker was called down to hear the news of Mrs. Bardell's arrest.
Mr. Prosee was left expatiating to the circle on some beautiful "point,"
and when Perker returned how likely that he should tell of his
extraordinary client who had preferred to go to prison rather t