This chapter commences at once with pecuniary difficulties. The wretched, leaky Danaid's bucket which our good couple had to use for washing their groschen or two, their grains of gold-dust--few and far between as they were--out of the sands of their Pactolus, had always run dry again in the course of a couple of days, or of three at the outside. On this occasion, however, they had something certain to go upon, namely, the reviews of the two works; they could count upon four florins certainly, if not upon five. Early next day, after his morning kiss, Firmian seated himself upon his critical judgment-bench again, and proceeded to pass his sentences. He might have written an epic poem, so light were the trade-winds which had hitherto been prevalent during the early hours of the day. From eight o'clock in the morning till eleven in the forenoon, he was engaged in holding up to the world in a favourable light the programme of Dr. Frank of Pavia, which was entitled: 'Sermo Academicus de civis medici in republica conditione atque officiis, ex lege præipue erutis. Auct. Frank. 1785.' He criticised, praised, blamed, and made extracts from this little production, till he thought he had covered enough paper to earn what would suffice to redeem the pawned herring-dish, salad-bowl, sauce-boat, and plates--his views on the work occupying one sheet, four pages, and fifteen lines. The morning had passed so pleasantly, in holding Vehmgericht in this manner, that he thought he might as well go on, and hold another in the afternoon on the other book. He had never ventured upon this before; in the afternoons he had done advocate's work, not reviewer's, appearing in the character of defendant (_maker_ of defence), not of fiscal (prosecutor). He had ample reason for this, seeing that every afternoon girls and maid-servants came with bonnets and caps, and with _mouths_ full of conversational treasures, which they at once unpacked; richer in language than the Arabs, who have only a thousand _words_ to express the same idea, these young women had a thousand _idioms_ for it, or different ways of putting it;--and, as an organ when it's out of order, immediately begins to cipher on twenty of its pipes or so at a time as soon as you begin to work the bellows, though no notes may be pressed down, so would they the moment the bellows of their lungs was set a-going. He didn't mind this, however, seeing that at the particular hours to which these feminine alarum clocks were set, he let his own juristical alarum go rattling off too, and during the arguing of Lenette's cases, went on with the arguing of his. He wasn't disturbed by this; he maintained: "A lawyer is not to be put out, he can open and close his sentences when he chooses--his periods are long tapeworms, and can be lengthened or cut down with impunity--for each segment of them is itself a worm, each comma a period."