whose “ownness” there’s
      desperate doubt of,
  And which (if she’s nous) you can’t keep in your house, nor yet (if
      she’s “savvy”) keep out of! 
  What is “Hymen’s halter”?  I fidget and falter!  The Beaks seem to palter
      and fumble. 
  In such a strange fashion, I fly in a passion, and vow that the world is a
      jumble. 
  Law seems a wigged noodle, as tame as a poodle, the whole darned caboodle
      (as ’ARRY sees)
  Is ructions and “rot,” and our “rulers” a lot of confounded old foodles
      and Pharisees! 
  Yes, that’s what I think about Marriage and Drink—­if you may call it
      thought, which with frenzy is fraught, and gives me a “head” like bad
      whiskey; whose dread is on me day and night, makes me wake in a fright,
      from visions most solemn of column on column of such “printed matter”
      and paragraph chatter, as makes me feel flatter than cold eggless batter
      upon a lead platter—­as mad as a hatter, and who will relieve me?  Can anyone? 
  I tell you it’s dreadful to face a whole bedful of spectres and spooks (born
      of papers and books) with, most horrible looks, limbs contorted in crooks,
      and bat-wings with big hooks, which haunt all the nooks of tester and
      curtain, and which, I am certain, will drive me insane if some one can’t
      explain where the mischief we are, ’midst the jumble and jar of factions
      and fads, of crotchets and cads, of Tolstois and Jeunes, and Ibsens (whose
      lunes are more lunatic still).  Oh, I’d learn with a will from any or aught,
      who could bring me, fresh caught, with lucidity fraught (what so long I have
      sought) a Clear Comforting Thought—­though a Penny One!

* * * * *

IN RE THE INFLUENZA.

(AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON THE APPEARANCE OF THE EPIDEMIC IN THE LAW COURTS.)

[Illustration:  Catching.]

Owing to recent sentimental legislation, many members of the learned profession, to which I have the honour to belong, have found their practice becoming (to quote the poet) “small by degrees and beautifully less.”  Times were when I could scarcely pass a week in term time without appearing in Court holding a consent brief, or armed with authority to move (unopposed) for the appointment of a receiver.  But that was long ago—­a deep contrast with to-day—­when my admirable and excellent Clerk PORTINGTON, finds an hour a day ample, almost too ample, time for posting up to date my Fee Book.  However, occasionally a gleam of the old sunshine illumines, so to speak, the chambers I occupy, and such a gleam was my retention for the Defence in the cause of Quicksilver v. Nore.  It was a Patent Case, and one of the deepest possible interest.  It is my good fortune to know the Defendant, personally, and it was through his kind offices that