But alack! at the Foreign Office, after stating my business and sitting like Patience on a Monument for two immortal hours, I was officially informed that the Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs was not in, and that all the Private and Under Secretaries were equally invisible.
This, I must respectfully submit, is not exactly the correct style to conduct a first-class Empire!
_Mr Jabberjee distinguishes himself in the Bar Examination, but is less successful in other respects. He writes another extremely ingenious epistle, from which he anticipates the happiest results._
I am happy to announce that I have passed the _pons asinorum_ of Bar Exam with facility of a needle penetrating the camel's eye. _Tant mieux!_ Huzza! Tol-de-rol-loll!!!
[Illustration: "HUZZA! TOL-DE-ROL-LOLL!"]
My dilatoriness in publishing this joyful intelligence is due to fact that I have only recently received official information of my triumph, which my family are now engaged in celebrating at Calcutta with pæans of transport, illuminations, fireworks, an English brass band, and delicacies supplied (on contract system) from Great Eastern Hotel.
And yet so great was my humility that, when I entered Lincoln's Inn Hall one Monday shortly before 10 A.M., and received pens, some foolscaps, and a printed exam paper on the Law of Real and Personal Property and Conveyancing, I was at first as melancholy as a gib cat, and like to eat my head with despair!
So much so that I began my answers by pathetically imploring my indulgent father examiner to show me his bowels of compassion, on ground that I was an unfortunate Bengalee chap, afflicted by narrow circumstances and a raging tooth, and that my entire earthly felicity depended upon my being favoured with qualifying marks.
However, on perusal of the paper, I found that, owing to diligent cram and native aptitude for nice sharp quillets of the law, I could floor it upon my _caput_, being at home with every description of mortgage, and having such things as reversions and contingent remainders at the extremities of my finger-ends.
In the afternoon I was again examined in Law and Equity, answering nearly every question with great copiousness and best style of composition, quoting freely from Hon'ble SNELL and UNDERHILL to back my opinion. Unhappily, I lost some of my precious time because, finding that I was required by the paper to "discuss" a certain statement, I left my seat in search of some pundit with whom I might carry on such a logomachy. And even now I fail to see how one individual can discuss a question in pen and ink, any more than a single hand is capable of making a clap. Which I gave as my reason for not attempting the impossible.