Mr. Thompson suggested to his son that they might be among those scraps he had thrown carelessly into the dark corner.  Ripton, though he consented to inspect them, was positive they were not there.

“What have we here?” said Mr. Thompson, seizing a neatly folded paper addressed to the Editor of a law publication, as Ripton brought them forth, one by one.  Forthwith Mr. Thompson fixed his spectacles and read aloud: 

“To the Editor of the ‘Jurist.’

“Sir,—­In your recent observations on the great case of Crim”—­

Mr. Thompson hem’d! and stopped short, like a man who comes unexpectedly upon a snake in his path.  Mr. Beazley’s feet shuffled.  Sir Austin changed the position of an arm.

“It’s on the other side, I think,” gasped Ripton.

Mr. Thompson confidently turned over, and intoned with emphasis.

“To Absalom, the son of David, the little Jew usurer of Bond Court, Whitecross Gutters, for his introduction to Venus, I O U Five pounds, when I can pay.

“Signed:  Ripton Thompson.”

Underneath this fictitious legal instrument was discreetly appended: 

“(Mem.  Document not binding.)”

There was a pause:  an awful under-breath of sanctified wonderment and reproach passed round the office.  Sir Austin assumed an attitude.  Mr. Thompson shed a glance of severity on his confidential clerk, who parried by throwing up his hands.

Ripton, now fairly bewildered, stuffed another paper under his father’s nose, hoping the outside perhaps would satisfy him:  it was marked “Legal Considerations.”  Mr. Thompson had no idea of sparing or shielding his son.  In fact, like many men whose self-love is wounded by their offspring, he felt vindictive, and was ready to sacrifice him up to a certain point, for the good of both.  He therefore opened the paper, expecting something worse than what he had hitherto seen, despite its formal heading, and he was not disappointed.

The “Legal Considerations” related to the Case regarding, which Ripton had conceived it imperative upon him to address a letter to the Editor of the “Jurist,” and was indeed a great case, and an ancient; revived apparently for the special purpose of displaying the forensic abilities of the Junior Counsel for the Plaintiff, Mr. Ripton Thompson, whose assistance the Attorney-General, in his opening statement, congratulated himself on securing; a rather unusual thing, due probably to the eminence and renown of that youthful gentleman at the Bar of his country.  So much was seen from the copy of a report purporting to be extracted from a newspaper, and prefixed to the Junior Counsel’s remarks, or Legal Considerations, on the conduct of the Case, the admissibility and non-admissibility of certain evidence, and the ultimate decision of the judges.

Mr. Thompson, senior, lifted the paper high, with the spirit of one prepared to do execution on the criminal, and in the voice of a town-crier, varied by a bitter accentuation and satiric sing-song tone, deliberately read: