_Ansard_. Wouvermans should have known better, and made his dogs better mannered if he expected his pictures to be hung up in the parlour of refinement. _Barnstaple_ Very true. _Ansard_. Perhaps you would like to have another passage or two. _Barnstaple_. Excuse me: I will imagine it all. I only hope, Ansard, this employment will not interfere with your legal practice. _Ansard_. My dear Barnstaple, it certainly will not, because my legal practice cannot be interfered with. I have been called to the bar, but find no employment in my calling. I have been sitting in my gown and wig for one year, and may probably sit a dozen more before I have to rise to address their lordships. I have not yet had a guinea brief. My only chance is to be sent out as judge to Sierra Leone, or perhaps to be made a commissioner of the Court of Requests. _Barnstaple_. You are indeed humble in your aspirations. I recollect the time, Ansard, when you dreamt of golden fame, and aspired to the woolsack--when your ambition prompted you to midnight labour, and you showed an energy-- _Ansard_. (_putting his hands up to his forehead, with his elbows on the table_.) What can I do, Barnstaple? If I trust to briefs, my existence will be but brief--we all must live. _Barnstaple_. I will not reply as Richelieu did to a brother author, "Je ne vois pas la necessite;" but this I do say, that if you are in future to live by supplying the public with such nonsense, the shorter your existence the better. CHAPTER FIFTY. THE LEGEND OF THE BELL ROCK. There was a grand procession through the streets of the two towns of Perth and Dundee. The holy abbots, in their robes, walked under gilded canopies, the monks chanted, the censers were thrown, flags and banners were carried by seamen, lighted tapers by penitents; Saint Antonio, the patron of those who trust to the stormy ocean, was carried in all pomp through the streets; and, as the procession passed, coins of various value were thrown down by those who watched it from the windows, and, as fast as thrown were collected by little boys dressed as angels, and holding silver vessels to receive the largesses. During the whole day did the procession continue, and large was the treasure collected in the two towns. Every one gave freely, for there were few, indeed none, who, if not in their own circle, at least among their acquaintances, had to deplore the loss of some one dear to them, or to those they visited, from the dangerous rock which lay in the very track of all the vessels entering the Firth of Tay.