“Blest if they young donkeys knows hot from cold!” said the senior clerk, disturbed in his little room by the prodding and walking, and the lively voices. “Sooner them, than you nor me!” the second clerk muttered sleepily. When the most ungrammatical English is wanted, a copying clerk is the man to supply it. In spite of unkindly criticism, the brisk aconitic strife went on. And every hit was chronicled on a long sheet of draft paper. “Sixteen to you, eighteen to me!” cried Gregory, poising his long shadowed spear, while his coat and waistcoat lay in the folds of a suit that could never terminate, and his square Kentish face was even redder than a ripe May-Duke. At that moment the door was opened, and in came Mr. Malahide. “Just so!” he said, in his quiet way; “I now understand the origin of a noise which has often puzzled me. Lorraine, what a baby you must be!” “Can a baby do that?” said Hilary, as he stepped into poor Gregory’s place, and sped his dart into the Chancellor’s eye, the bull’s-eye of their target. “That was well done,” Mr. Malahide answered; “perhaps it is the only good shot you will ever make in your profession.” “I hope not, sir. Under your careful tuition I am laying the foundations of a mighty host of learning.” At this the lawyer was truly pleased. He really did believe that he took some trouble with his pupils; and his very kind heart was always gratified by their praises. And he showed his pleasure in his usual way by harping on verbal niceties. “Foundations of a host, Lorraine! Foundations of a pile, you mean; and as yet, _lusisti pilis_. But you may be a credit to me yet. Allowance must be made for this great heat. I will talk to you to-morrow.” With these few words, and a pleasant smile, the eminent lawyer withdrew to his den, feigning to have caught no glimpse of the deeply-blushing Lovejoy. For he knew quite well that Gregory could not afford to play with his schooling; and so (like a proper gentleman) he fell upon the one who could. Hilary saw his motive, and with his usual speed admired him. “What a fine fellow he is!” he said, as if in pure self-commune; “from the time he becomes Lord Chancellor, I will dart at no legal almanac. But the present fellow--however, the weather is too hot to talk of him. Lovejoy, wilt thou come with me? I must break out into the country.” “What!” cried Gregory, drawing up at the magic word from his stool of repentance, and the desk of his diminished head. “What was that you said, Lorraine?” “Fair indeed is the thing thou hast said, and fair is the way thou saidst it. Tush! shall I never get wholly out of my ignorant knowledge of Greek plays? Of languages that be, or have been, only two words survive this weather, in the streets of London town; one is ‘rus,’ and the other ‘country.’” “‘It is a sweet and decorous thing to die on behalf of the country.’ That line I remember well; you must have seen it somewhere?”