the instructions to appear for him were left at my chambers.  My friend and client (who is unjustly said to be eccentric in his habits) has recently patented and produced a most important invention, which greatly facilitates the retention of dinner-napkins, after those useful, nay, necessary articles have been used for the purpose for which they are manufactured.  Like all really valuable inventions, the patent is simplicity itself, the napkin-ring consisting of the section of the thicker end of an elephant’s tusk cut to an appropriate size and hollowed out.  It is necessary to fold the dinner-napkin in such a fashion that, when inserted through the ring, its shape is retained by the adherent properties inseparable from the ivory.  The patent can also be produced in other materials, such as gold, silver and jewels for the wealthy, and in bone, tin and even glass for purchasers of smaller means.  I must say that when the ring was shown to me I was greatly struck with the cleverness and simplicity of the idea, and could not understand how Mr. QUICKSILVER could have allowed himself to be so badly advised as to bring an action for infringement, merely on the strength of his patent being also a dinner-napkin-holder with the ring element so far introduced that it consisted of a circle closed and opened by a hinge.  However, it was no part of my duty to advise the other side, so I set to work to get up my case (as I invariably do) con amore.  I hunted up all the causes in the Digest, that seemed to be on all-fours with the matter in dispute, and spent days in the Public Library of the Patent Office searching for patents having to do with table-napkins.  As the specifications were not consecutively published, I had to wade through a large number of these interesting documents that treated of other subjects.  For instance, the first specification I would take out of the box in which it was kept, would perhaps have to do with house-raising without disturbance to the foundations, the second would prove to be an article half umbrella, half revolver, while in the third I would perhaps find an extremely quaint notion for a portable pocket corkscrew.  I myself picked up many ideas for future use, and hope some day, if I do nothing else, at least to perfect a clever little contrivance of my own for arousing the inmates of a house invaded by burglars by casement concussions.  I propose calling this valuable little instrument (which is founded to some extent on the simple construction by which the figures in a child’s box of wooden soldiers are enabled to advance and retire in a scissors-like fashion), when produced, the Policeman’s Upper Floor Window Tapper.