Another circumstance that strikes me as remarkable, is the frequency with which I hear the Impressive Clerk (in the little room next to mine) requesting persons who have called to “settle up that other little matter.”  Then the strange voice laughs, and says—­“Oh, your Governor can wait.”  “No, he can’t,”—­it’s the Clerk who says this—­“it’s been going on for three years, now.”  “Well,” chimes in the unknown, “let it go a bit longer.  When’ll your Governor have settled those pleadings?” “When your people settle about the five guineas, and not before,” replies the Impressive Clerk in his best Parliamentary debating style.  Then follows a long wrangle, not on law, but on finance, which never—­as far as I can judge—­ends in the Clerk getting his way, and his money.

[Illustration:  “Looks like a Prime Minister in reduced circumstances.”]

Astonishing event happens.  A real live new brief comes in!  Impressive Clerk—­who looks like a Prime Minister in reduced circumstances—­brings it to FIBBINS when I am in the room.  More impressive than ever.  “From ROGERS, in Chancery Lane—­an excellent firm, Sir,” he says.  Poor FIBBINS tries, ineffectually, to conceal his delight, and his eye turns instinctively to the place where the fee is marked.

“Six guas” (legal slang for guineas) “for an Opinion, not bad,” he comments, rubbing his hands.  FIBBINS dusts a corner of his desk, and lays it down there.

I am given this precious brief, and am asked to write a “draft Opinion” about it!  “Just to try your hand,” says FIBBINS, who does not wish me to be conceited.  “Then I’ll write my own afterwards,” he adds.

I make a very elaborate commentary, quoting from innumerable parallel cases in English, American, and Roman law, and, after giving it to DICK FIBBINS to read, I don’t see it again.

But, a few afternoons later, when Impressive Clerk happens to be out, a knock comes.  Nobody in.  At last, go myself (Query—­infra dig.?) and open door.

“Here!” says a juvenile, who apparently mistakes me for the Clerk, and rudely chucks some papers to me, which hit me in the chest, “give these to your Governor.  What a time you take answering a knock!  Having a nap, hay?  Take care old FIBBINS don’t catch you at it, that’s all!” Juvenile disappears downstairs, whistling, before I can think of a suitable rejoinder.

Open the papers.  The same brief returned with request to “draw up a Statement of Claim,”—­and my “Opinion” inside!  It looks as if DICK sent these clients of his my valuable advice, pretending that it was his own!

My learned “leader,” when he comes in, treats affair very coolly.

“Oh, did I send your ‘Opinion’ to them as well as mine?  What an ass I am!  I wonder what they thought of it?”

I also wonder.  In looking over the returned brief just now, however, I certainly did not come across the “Opinion,” manufactured by FIBBINS himself, of which that learned Counsel spoke.  And I have no second chance of examining it, as he is careful to take “all the documents in the case” (a phrase of the Impressive Clerk’s) home with him, for what he calls re-perusal.