For the next few years little was heard of him. He read in chambers, drew pleadings and indictments, and gathered many useful tricks from the criminal advocate to whom he attached himself like a leech. During this period he also made the acquaintance of a Solicitor who had retired from the noon-day glare of professional rectitude to the congenial atmosphere of shady cases. He also struck up a friendship with two or three struggling journalists, who were occupied in hanging on to the paragraphic fringe of their profession, and who might be trusted afterwards to lend a hand to an intimate engaged in a similar, but not identical line of business. Helped by a shrewd, and not over-scrupulous clerk, he gradually picked up a practice, a thing mainly of shreds and patches, but still a practice of a sort. At the Middlesex Sessions, and at the Central Criminal Court, his name began to be mentioned; and in a certain money-lending case it was acknowledged that his astuteness had prevented the exposure of his client from being as crushing and complete as the rate of per-centage had seemed to warrant. Soon afterwards, one of his richer college companions, whose convictions were stronger than his power of expressing them, was selected as Candidate for a remote constituency, where speakers were not easily obtained. The glib Barrister was remembered, and appealed to. At an immense sacrifice of time and money, he rushed to the rescue, his travelling and hotel expenses being defrayed by the Candidate. He spoke much, he spoke triumphantly; he referred, in touching terms, to the ties of ancient friendship that bound him to the noblest and best of men, the Candidate; and, when the latter was eventually elected, it was stated in every Metropolitan evening paper that he owed his success chiefly to the eloquence and energy of the able Barrister who had pleaded his cause. Henceforward there was no peace, politically speaking, for the Barrister. Swifter than swift CAMILLA he scoured the plain facts of political controversy at meeting after meeting, until they glowed under the dazzled eyes of innumerable electors. Where Leagues congregated, or Unions met, or Associations resolved, there he was to be found, always eager, in the fore-front of the battle. He became the cheap jackal of the large political lions who roar after their food throughout the length and breadth of the land, and picked up scraps in the shape of votes of thanks to chairmen. He figured at political receptions, and eventually contested a hopeless Constituency, with the assistance of the party funds. Having, by his complete defeat, established a claim on the gratitude of his party, he applied successively for a Recordership, a Police Magistracy, and a County Court Judgeship, but was compelled to be satisfied temporarily with the post of Revising Barrister. Yet, though he was disgusted with the base ingratitude of time-serving politicians,