Having long since got thoroughly accustomed to the whole matter, and having acquired a certain amount of dignity of demeanour, he is able to go through the wondrous ceremony with comparative ease, but is still greatly troubled with certain qualms of conscience in certain special cases. For instance, when fining a poor working-man five shillings for drunkenness,--he having met an old friend and been persuaded to take more than was good for him,--and that amount probably constituting a full day's income, his thoughts will revert to that particularly jovial banquet with his worshipful Company the previous evening, and whether some one or two of the guests not sufficiently seasoned to these matters, were not quite as guilty as the poor workman he had just fined, and how they would like to have to pay a day's income for this folly, amounting in one case to probably £100! and yet possibly the workman had the better excuse of the two! And then, again, there is that very awkward and puzzling question, that so troubles some of his more conscientious brethren as well as himself, that of punishment for gambling. When inflicting some of those very heavy fines and penalties, which he is told it is his bounden duty to do in the case of betting in public houses, his thoughts must revert to those two most intimate friends of his who are regular visitors at TATTERSALL'S in the height of the racing season; and also to the fact that he himself, as his stock-broker well knows, after leaving the Bench, occasionally wends his way to Capel Court, and buys or sells for the account to very very large amounts; and, though he probably tries his best, as others do, to convince himself that there is no doubt a very great difference between the cases of Mr. BUNG and Mr. TATTERSALL, and between playing cards for half-crowns, and buying or selling £50,000 Consols for the account, it was not until his conscience had lost its natural elasticity that he succeeded, and, even now its twinges are, occasionally, very sharp. When Alderman SLOCOACH was first elected to his high position, his great delight was to attend at the Old Bailey, and occupy a seat on the judicial Bench, and enjoy the supreme satisfaction of feeling that, without his absolutely useless presence, the whole proceedings must necessarily come to a stand-still, and fond memory still looks back to the occasion on which one of Her MAJESTY'S Judges actually said to him, in quite a friendly manner, "Shall _we_ say twelve or fifteen months, Alderman?" On the other hand, he will probably remember, to his dying day, the look of mingled anger and contempt with which he was received by another of Her MAJESTY'S Judges, of rather irascible temper, when he rushed breathless into Court, having, by his absence, delayed the proceedings for more than an hour.