Perhaps, after all, FIBBINS will dash my hopes (of becoming his "pup!" _Query_, isn't the word _infra dig._--or merely "pleasantly colloquial?") to the ground. "I was," I say boldly, "going to ask you if you would let _me_ read with you." "Were you?" replies DICK, apparently intensely astonished at the idea; "By Jove! I should be really sorry to disappoint _you_. Yes," he goes on in a burst of generosity, "I will make room for you--there!" This is really kind of DICK FIBBINS. We finally arrange that I am to come in two days' time--at the usual, and rather pretentious, fee of one hundred guineas for a year's "coaching"--and begin work. "You'll see some good cases with me--good fighting cases," FIBBINS remarks, as I take my leave. "When there are no briefs, why, you can read up the Law Reports, you know. My books are quite at your disposal." "But," I remark, a little surprised at that hint about no briefs--I thought DICK FIBBINS had more than he knew what to do with--"I suppose--er--there's plenty of business going on here?" "Oh, heaps," replies FIBBINS, hastily. Then, as if to do away with any bad impression which his thoughtless observation about no briefs might have occasioned in my mind, he says, heartily,-- "And, when I take old PROSER up to the Court of Appeal, _you shall come too, and hear me argue!_" I express suitable gratitude--but isn't it rather "contempt of Court" on FIBBINS's part to talk about "taking up" a Judge?--and feel, as I depart, that I shall soon see something of the real inner life of the Profession. * * * * * ON THE MARLOWE MEMORIAL. (_UNVEILED BY MR. HENRY IRVING AT CANTERBURY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1891._) MARLOWE, your "mighty line" Though worthy of a darling of the Nine, Has--in quotation--many a reader riled. Like SHAKSPEARE's "wood-notes wild," And POPE's "lisped numbers," it becomes a bore When hackneyed o'er and o'er By every petty scribe and criticaster. Yet we must own you master Of the magnificent and magniloquent. And modern playwrights might be well content Were they but dowered with passion, fancy, wit, Like great ill-fated "KIT." * * * * * THE LAST OF THE CANTERBURY TALES. BEFORE THE UNVEILING. _She_. What do you know about MARLOWE? _He_. Isn't it somewhere near Taplow? _She_. I think not, because Mr. IRVING went to unveil MARLOWE, and I don't think he is a rowing-man. _He_. But he may be doing it for Sir MORELL MACKENZIE, who has a place at Wargrave. _She_. Yes, but then the papers would have said something about it--wouldn't they? _He_. Very likely; they would say anything in the silly season. AFTER THE UNVEILING. _She_. Well, I know all about MARLOWE now. He was a great poet--greater than SHAKSPEARE, or thereabouts. _He_. Always thought that they would find some fellow greater than SHAKSPEARE. SHAKSPEARE always bores me awfully. But what did _this_ fellow write?