Off I marched to Bow Street with the greatest _sang-froid_ to report a case, at which in after years I should certainly have shied. It was a most important bank fraud, and meant enormous complications in figures. Mr. Burnaby, the chief clerk, was kind enough to let me correct my figures from the depositions which had been taken by him; Sir Thomas Henry repeated to me the gist of his remarks on remanding the case, and the result was I turned out a report on manifold for all the evening and morning papers, and the usual special report for _The Times_--in this instance over a column long--with which my father was delighted. I received a most encouraging letter from him after a few days' interval. The interval was merely to give time for the arrival of any complaint from the papers. Editors are not in the habit of sending letters of congratulation, only of complaint. No complaint arrived, however, and my only disappointment was the complete absence of important and interesting cases. At last another opportunity arrived which enabled me to distinguish myself. I wish it had not. A poor woman was charged with purloining a shirt which was hanging outside a cheap hosier's in Clare Market somewhere. It was a windy day, and the end of the shirt was apparently flapping round the corner of the shop; so the prisoner, unable to resist temptation, filched it after the manner of a clown in a pantomime. Inspired by the punning humour of Tom Hood, I parodied one of his poems for the heading of my police report. The heading was "The Tale of a Shirt." This had a most undesired effect. The serious papers wrote to complain of the flippancy of the title; the refined papers of its vulgarity; while the vulgar papers inserted the title, which they emphasised by printing the word "tale" in italic. This caused sarcastic paragraphs to appear in other papers directed against my father, who, of course, was the responsible reporter, and who, consequently, wrote me a second letter anent my talents for reporting which differed widely from the first. Fortunately for all parties, Mr. Courtenay got well and returned to his post, and in 1866 it was decided I should thoroughly learn the business from him, so as to have some remunerative occupation while studying, and eventually following, the profession of the bar. Circumstances, however, ultimately prevented me from doing either. There are several, if not many, barrister-reporters in London; I know my friend Mr. E. T. Besley was one, and so were Mr. Finlayson and Mr. Corrie Grant, and I could mention three or four others.