ppose?"

"You will see him presently," said the lawyer; "he is in the passage
waiting till I call him in to take some instructions from him; and I
think I had better do so now, for I have breakfasted, and time is wearing
away."

He then got up, took some papers out of a carpet bag, sat down, and after
glancing at them for a minute or two, went to the door and called to
somebody in Welsh to come in. Forthwith in came a small, mean,
wizzened-faced man of about sixty, dressed in a black coat and hat, drab
breeches and gaiters, and looking more like a decayed Methodist preacher
than a spearer of imperial salmon.

"Well," said the attorney, "This is my client, what do you think of him?"

"He is rather a different person from what I had expected to see," said
I; "but let us mind what we say or we shall offend him."

"Not we," said the attorney; "that is, unless we speak Welsh, for he
understands not a word of any other language."

Then sitting down at the further table he said to his client in Welsh:
"Now, Mr So-and-so, have you learnt anything more about that first
keeper?"

The client bent down, and placing both his hands upon the table began to
whisper in Welsh to his professional adviser. Not wishing to hear any of
their conversation I finished my breakfast as soon as possible and left
the room. Going into the inn-yard I had a great deal of learned
discourse with an old ostler about the glanders in horses. From the
inn-yard I went to my own private room and made some dottings in my
note-book, and then went down again to the parlour, which I found
unoccupied. After sitting some time before the fire I got up, and
strolling out, presently came to a kind of marketplace, in the middle of
which stood an old-fashioned-looking edifice supported on pillars.
Seeing a crowd standing round it I asked what was the matter, and was
told that the magistrates were sitting in the town-hall above, and that a
grand poaching case was about to be tried. "I may as well go and hear
it," said I.

Ascending a flight of steps I found myself in the hall of justice, in the
presence of the magistrates and amidst a great many people, amongst whom
I observed my friend the attorney and his client. The magistrates, upon
the whole, were rather a fine body of men. Lord V--- was in the chair, a
highly intelligent-looking person, with fresh complexion, hooked nose,
and dark hair. A policeman very civilly procured me a commodious seat.
I had