All this time there was everywhere painfully suppressed laughter, and even the jury, all of them Epsom men, and many of whom I knew well enough, were hardly able to contain themselves.

His lordship, after summing up the case to the jury, looked down quietly to me, as I was sitting below him, and murmured,—­

“Hawkins, you’ve got all Epsom with you!”

“Yes,” I answered, “but you have got the Quaker; he was the only one I was afraid of.”

“You have transformed him,” said the Judge.

In a few minutes the verdict showed the accuracy of his lordship’s observation, for the jury returned a verdict of “Not guilty.”

I must say, however, that Parke did his utmost to obtain a conviction, but reason and good sense were too much for him.

CHAPTER XIX.

SAM WARREN, THE AUTHOR OF “TEN THOUSAND A YEAR.”

Amongst the illustrious men whom I have met, the name of Sam Warren deserves remembrance, for he was a genial, good-natured man, full of humour, and generally entertained a good opinion of everybody, including himself.  He not only achieved distinction in his profession and became a Queen’s Counsel, but wrote a book which attained a well-deserved popularity, and was entitled “Ten Thousand a Year.”

He was a member of the Northern Circuit, and I believe was as popular as his book.  That he did not become a Judge, like several of his friends, was not Sam’s fault, for no man went more into society, cultivated acquaintances of the best style, or had better qualifications for the honour than he.

But although he did not achieve this distinction, he was made a little lower than that order, and became in due time a Master in Lunacy, a post, as it seemed from Sam’s description, of the highest importance and no little fun.

A part of his duties was to visit lunatic asylums and other places where these patients were confined, with a view to report to the authorities his opinion of the patients’ mental condition.  No doubt to a man of Sam’s observant mind this work presented many studies of interest, as well as situations of excitement, and at times of no little humour.  He found, for instance, that many of these poor creatures were possessed of a much larger income than ten thousand a year.  Some of them were Dukes and some supernatural beings, who were just on a visit to this little clod of a world to see how things were going.

Soon after his appointment, and before he had become used to the work, he told me of a singular experience he once had with a particular gentleman whom he was intending to report as having perfectly recovered from any mental aberration with which he might have been afflicted.  Sam wondered how it was possible that a gentleman of such culture and understanding should be considered a fit subject for confinement, for he had several pleasant and intellectual conversations with him, and found him quite agreeable and refined, and of a perfectly balanced mind.