new editions of other people’s books, and continually exposed the bad law they wrote in his conversation.  He had waited his turn like another for “soups” at the Bailey, and like another had grown weary of waiting; besides, the meditative cast of his mind enticed him towards chamber practice and away from public pleading before judge and jury.  Silk sought “a big advertising case”; he desired the excitement of court, and, though he never refused any work, he dreaded the lonely hours necessary for the perfect drawing up of a long indictment.  Cooper was very much impressed with Silk’s abilities; he thought him too hard and mechanical, not sufficiently interested in the science of morals; but these defects of character were forgotten in his homage to his friend’s worldly shrewdness.  For Cooper was unendowed with worldly shrewdness, and, like all dreamers, was attracted by a mind which controlled while he might only attempt to understand.  Cooper’s aspirations towards an ideal tickled Silk’s mind as it prepared its snares.  Cooper often invited Silk to dine with him at the National Liberal Club; Silk sometimes asked Cooper to dine with him at the Union.  Silk and Cooper were considered alike, and there were many points in which their appearances coincided.  Cooper was the shorter man of the two, but both were tall, thin, narrow, and sallow complexioned; both were essentially clean, respectable, and middle-class.

Cooper was the son of a Low Church bishop who had gained his mitre by temperance oratory, and what his Lordship was in the cathedral, Cooper was in the suburban drawing-rooms where radical politics and the woman’s cause were discussed.  When he had a brief he brought it to the library to show it; he almost lived in the library.  He arrived the moment it was opened, and brought a packet of sandwiches so as not to waste time going out to lunch.  His chambers were furnished without taste, but the works of Comte and Spencer showed that he had attempted to think; and the works of several socialistic writers showed that he had striven to solve the problem of human misery.  On the table were several novels by Balzac, which conversation with Harding had led him to purchase and to read.  He likewise possessed a few volumes of modern poetry, but he freely confessed that he preferred Pope, Dryden, and Johnson; and it was impossible to bring him to understand that De Quincey was more subtle and suggestive than the author of London.

Generally our souls are made of one conspicuous modern mental aspect; but below this aspect we are woven and coloured by the spirit of some preceding century, our chance inheritance, and Cooper was a sort of product of the pedantry of Johnson and the utilitarian mysticism of Comte.  Perhaps the idea nearest to Cooper’s heart was “the woman’s cause.”  The misery and ignominy of human life had affected him, and he dreamed of the world’s regeneration through women; and though well aware that Comte and Spencer advocate the application of experience in