_Chairman of Committee_ (_interposing_). I would suggest that, as this question has been answered three times, the witness be excused further examination at the hands of Counsel not present at the examination-in-chief.
_First C.-E. Q.C._ (_warmly_). I consider this an infringement of the privileges of the Bar. The Right Hon. Chairman must remember that it is possible that a single reference in the examination-in-chief may only require cross-examination on the part of the Clients whom we represent. Besides, an expert witness's examination-in-chief is very seldom shaken, and all we can possibly want is a note taken by a learned friend who has acted as a Junior. All of us are occasionally wanted elsewhere.
_Second C.-E. Q.C._ (_indignantly_). Yes; and how can we attend to our Clients' interests if we are not allowed to be in two places at once?
_Third C.-E. Q.C._ (_furiously_). You have no right to act upon an old ruling that was never enforced. Why, such a regulation would ruin us--and many of us have wives and children!
[_Exeunt defiantly, to return, later on, ready to brave imprisonment in the Clock Tower, if necessary, N.B.--Up to date the Tower is untenanted._
"IN THE NAME OF THE LAW--PHOTOGRAPHS!"--MR. A. BRIEFLESS, Junr., having received a respectful invitation from some Brook Street Photographers to favour them (without charge) with a sitting, "to enable them to complete their series of portraits of distinguished legal gentlemen," regrets to say that, as he has already sat for another Firm making the same request (see _Papers from Pump-handle Court_), he is unable to comply with their courteous request. However, he is pleased to hear that a similar petition has been forwarded to others of his learned friends, one of whom writes to say, he "possesses a wig, and the right to wear it, but that there his connection with the Law begins and ends." Mr. A. BRIEFLESS, Junr., wishes the industrious Firm every success in their public-spirited undertaking.
GOSCHEN CUM DIG.; OR, THE (FAR FROM) DYING SWAN.
[Illustration: "WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THIS RECESS IS ITS PERFECT QUIET!"]
"Were I to go further into detail, I should show you that the floodgates of (financial) abuse have been opened even to a much larger extent than I have described. We are getting into a system under which Parliament is treated, and the country is treated, to the exhibition of fictitious surpluses of revenue over expenditure."--_Mr. Gladstone (at Hastings) on Mr. Goschen's Finance._