in one of the houses his father frequented, he might meet Sir Arthur; indeed, a meeting could easily be arranged.  Here Mr. Silk’s sallow face almost flushed with a little colour, and his heart beat as his little scheme pressed upon his mind.  Dreading an obstacle, he feared to allow the thought to formulate; but after a moment he let it slip, and it said—­“Now if I were to take the second floor, I should often meet Sir Arthur on the doorstep and staircase.  What an immense advantage it would be to me when Stoggard and Higgins learnt that I was on terms of friendship with Sir Arthur.  I know as a positive fact that Stoggard and Higgins would give anything to get Sir Arthur for some of their work....  But the rent is very heavy in Paper Buildings.  I must speak to father about it.”  A few weeks after, Mr. Joseph transferred his furniture to No. 2, Paper Buildings; and not long after he had the pleasure of meeting Sir Arthur at dinner.

Mr. Silk’s love affairs were neither numerous nor interesting.  He had spent little of his time with women, and little of his money upon women, and his amativeness had led him into no wilder exploit than the seduction of his laundress’s daughter, by whom he had had a child.  Indeed, it had once been whispered that the mother, with the child in her arms, had knocked at King’s Bench Walk and had insisted on being admitted.  Having not the slightest knowledge or perception of female nature, he had extricated himself with difficulty from the scandal by which he was menaced, and was severely mulcted before the girl was induced to leave London.  About every three months she wrote to him, and these letters were read with horror and burnt in trembling haste; for Mr. Joseph Silk was now meditating for matrimonial and legal purposes one of the daughters of one of the solicitors he had met in Paper Buildings, and being an exceedingly nervous, ignorant, and unsympathetic man in all that did not concern his profession, was vastly disturbed at every echo of his indiscretion.

Harding, in reply to a question as to what he thought of Silk, said—­

“What do I think of Silk?  Cotton back” ... and every one laughed, feeling the intrinsic truth of the judgement.

Mr. George Cooper was Mr. Joseph Silk’s friend.  Cooper consulted Silk on every point.  Whenever he saw a light in Silk’s chambers he thrilled a little with anticipation of the pleasant hour before him, and they sat together discussing the abilities of various eminent judges and barristers.  Silk told humorous anecdotes of the judges; Cooper was exercised concerning their morality, and enlarged anxiously on the responsibility of placing a man on the Bench without having full knowledge of his private life.  Silk listened, puffing at his pipe, and to avoid committing himself to an opinion, asked Cooper to have another glass of port.  Before they parted allusion was made to the law-books that Cooper was writing—­Cooper was always bringing out