The learned gentleman then proceeded to detail the proceedings of the day’s shooting, and afterwards to analyse the enactments of the new Game Bill, which he denounced as arbitrary, oppressive, and ridiculous, and concluded a long and energetic speech, by calling upon the court to reverse the decision of the magistrate, and not support the preposterous position of fining a man for a trespass committed by his toe.

After a few minutes had elapsed, Mr. Sergeant Bumptious, a stiff, bull-headed little man, desperately pitted with the smallpox, rose to reply, and looking round the court, thus commenced: 

“Five-and-thirty years have I passed in courts of justice, but never, during a long and extensive practice, have I witnessed so gross a perversion of that sublimest gift, called eloquence, as within the last hour”—­here he banged his brief against the table, and looked at Mr. Smirk, who smiled.—­“I lament, sir, that it has not been employed in a better cause—­(bang again—­and another look).  My learned friend has, indeed, laboured to make the worse appear the better cause—­to convert into a trifle one of the most outrageous acts that ever disgraced a human being or a civilised country.  Well did he describe the importance of this case!—­important as regards his client’s character—­important as regards this great and populous county—­important as regards those social ties by which society is held together—­important as regards a legislative enactment, and important as regards the well-being and prosperity of the whole nation—­(bang, bang, bang).  I admire the bombastic eloquence with which my learned friend introduced his most distinguished client—­his most delicate minded—­sensitive client!—­Truly, to hear him speaking I should have thought he had been describing a lovely, blushing young lady, but when he comes to exhibit his paragon of perfection, and points out that great, red-faced, coarse, vulgar-looking, lubberly lump of humanity—­(here Bumptious looked at Jorrocks as he would eat him)—­sitting below the witness-box, and seeks to enlist the sympathies of your worships on the Bench—­of you, gentlemen, the high-minded, shrewd, penetrating judges of this important cause—­(and Bumptious smiled and bowed along the Bench upon all whose eyes he could catch)—­on behalf of such a monster of iniquity, it does make one blush for the degradation of the British Bar—­(bang—­bang—­bang—­Jorrocks here looked unutterable things).  Does my learned friend think by displaying his hero as a fox-hunter, and extolling his prowess in the field, to gain over the sporting magistrates on the Bench?  He knows little of the upright integrity—­the uncompromising honesty—­the undeviating, inflexible impartiality that pervades the breast of every member of this tribunal, if he thinks for the sake of gain, fear, favour, hope, or reward, to influence the opinion, much less turn the judgment, of any one of them.” (Here Bumptious bowed very low to them all and laid his hand upon his