I can see it in
the face of that horrid Mr. Addison. Just now he positively glared at me
and ground his teeth, and he would not do that if he thought that he was
going to win. No, dear; I shall fight it out now."
"Very well," said Eustace, and he took a pencil and wrote, "Declined with
thanks," at the foot of the offer.
Just at that moment there came a dull roar from the passage beyond. The
doors of the court were being opened. Another second, and in rushed and
struggled a hideous sea of barristers. Heavens, how they fought and
kicked! A maddened herd of buffaloes could not have behaved more
desperately. On rushed the white wave of wigs, bearing the strong men who
hold the door before them like wreckage on a breaker. On they came and in
forty seconds the court was crowded to its utmost capacity, and still
there were hundreds of white wigged men behind. It was a fearful scene.
"Good gracious!" thought Augusta to herself, "how on earth do they all
get a living?" a question that many of them would have found it hard
enough to answer.
Then suddenly an old gentleman near her, whom she discovered to be the
usher, jumped up and called "Silence!" in commanding accents, without
producing much effect, however, on the palpitating mass of humanity in
front.
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