Once, too, a man with
whom he had a nodding acquaintance, rushed up to him, and, thrusting a
brief into his hands, asked him to hold it for him, telling him that it
would be on in a short time, and that there was nothing in it--"nothing
at all." Scarcely had poor James struggled through the brief when the
case was called on, and it may suffice to say that at its conclusion, the
Judge gazed at him mildly, over his spectacles, and "could not help
wondering that any learned counsel had been found who would consent to
waste the time of the Court in such a case as the one to which he had
been listening." Clearly James' friend would not so consent, and had
passed on the responsibility, minus the fee. On another occasion, James
was in the Probate Court on motion day, and a solicitor--a real live
solicitor--came up to him and asked him to make a motion (marked
Mr.----, 2 gns.) for leave to dispense with a co-respondent. This motion
he made, and the co-respondent was dispensed with in the approved
fashion; but when he turned round the solicitor had vanished, and he
never saw him more or the two guineas either. However, the brief, his
only one, remained, and, after that, he took to hovering about the
Divorce Court, partly in the hope of once more seeing that solicitor, and
partly with a vague idea of drifting into practice in the Division.
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