On our way home over the meadows, where the grasshoppers were practising for the next day’s sports, and were in high glee over this harvest festival, Mr. Goodman seemed fidgety; whether conscience-stricken for the Sabbath fraud he had practised upon me or not, I could not say, but at last he asked how I liked their little service.

I said it was quite large enough.

“You”—­he paused—­“you did not, I think”—­another pause—­“contribute to our little gathering?”

“No,” I said, “but it was not my fault; I lent you all I had.  The fund, however, will not suffer in the least, and you have the satisfaction of having contributed the whole of our joint pocket-money.  It does not matter who the giver is so long as the fund obtains it.”  I then diverted his mind with a story or two.

Cockburn, I said, was sitting next to Thesiger during a trial before Campbell, Chief Justice, in which the Judge read some French documents, and, being a Scotsman, it attracted a good deal of attention.  Cockburn, who was a good French scholar, was much annoyed at the Chief Justice’s pronunciation of the French language.

“He is murdering it,” said he—­“murdering it!”

“No, my dear Cockburn,” answered Thesiger, “he is not killing it, only Scotching it.”

Sir Alexander was at a little shooting-party with Bethell and his son, one of whom shot the gamekeeper.  The father accused the son of the misadventure, while the son returned the compliment.  Cockburn, after some little time, asked the gamekeeper what was the real truth of the unfortunate incident—­who was the gentleman who had inflicted the injury?

The gamekeeper, still smarting from his wounds, and forgetting the respect due to the questioner, answered,—­

“O Sir Alexander—­d—­n ’em, it was both!”

A remark made by Lord Young, the Scotch Judge, one of the wittiest men who ever adorned the Bar, and who is a Bencher of the Middle Temple, struck me as particularly happy.  There was a conversation about the admission of solicitors to the roll, and the long time it took before they were eligible to pass from their stage of pupilage to that of solicitor, amounting, I think, to seven years; upon which Lord Young said, “Nemo repente fuit turpissimus.”

CHAPTER XXV.

COMPENSATION—­NICE CALCULATIONS IN OLD DAYS—­EXPERTS—­LLOYD AND I.

As my business continued to increase, it took me more and more from the ordinary nisi prius, and kept me perpetually employed in special matters.  I had a great many compensation cases, where houses, lands, and businesses had been taken for public or company purposes.  They were interesting and by no means difficult, the great difficulty being to get the true value when you had, as I have known, a hundred thousand pounds asked on one side and ten thousand offered on the other.