Arthur laughed again. What a way to talk of his precious brief, pregnant with all those wonderful possibilities! What an epithet for the barque that carried Cæsar and his fortunes! But his laugh had sympathy and understanding in it. Across the narrow table sat another Cæsar--and there was a barque that carried his fortunes, and was to set sail within a short space on a stormy and dangerous voyage, over a sea beset with shoals. "Well, anyhow, here's jolly good luck to _Jephthah's Daughter_!" he said. Such was the title of Mr. Claud Beverley's play of real life. But when they did at last get back to the neglected case, and Tom Mayne elbowed out Claud Beverley, a very good head Tom showed himself to have, however melancholy again its facial aspect. They wrestled with their points of evidence for an hour, Arthur sending to borrow Norton Ward's 'Taylor,' and at the end Tom Mayne remarked grimly, "That's a double conference, I think!" "Some of it really belongs to _Jephthah's Daughter_," said Arthur with a laugh. "We may as well get something out of her, anyhow!"--and Tom Mayne absolutely laughed. Making an appointment to meet and dine, accepting an invitation to come and see _Jephthah's Daughter_, full of thanks, friendliness, and sympathetic hopes for the friend who had done him such a good turn, inspired with the thought of the work and the fight which lay before him--in fact, in a state of gleeful excitement and goodwill towards the world at large, Arthur accompanied his friend to the door and took leave of him--indeed of both of him; gratitude to Tom Mayne, hopes for Claud Beverley, were inextricably blended. And it so fell out--what, indeed, was not capable of happening to-day?--that, as his friend walked down the stairs with a last wave of his arm, Mr. Norton Ward, K.C., walked up them, on his return from a consultation with Sir Robert Sharpe. "Who's that?" he asked carelessly, as he went into chambers, followed by Arthur, and they reached the place--half room, half hall--which Henry and the boy (the Junior Clerk was his own title for himself) inhabited. "Only one of my clients," said Arthur, with assumed grandeur, but unable to resist grinning broadly. "One won't be able to get up one's own stairs for the crowd, if you go on like this," observed Norton Ward. "Oh, look here, Henry! I met Mr. Worthing--of the Great Southern office, you know--over at Sir Robert's. There's a case coming in from them to-night, and they want a consultation at half-past five to-morrow. Just book it, will you?" He turned to go into his own room. But Arthur had lingered--and listened. "A case from the Great Southern? Do you know what it's about?" Norton Ward smiled--rather apologetically. He liked it to be considered that he was in only really "heavy" cases now. "Well, it's something about a dog, I believe, Arthur." He added, "An uncommonly valuable dog, I'm told, though." A valuable dog indeed--for one person in that room, anyhow!