So they set off for the chambers of Dr. Flare, which were at only a few yards' distance. Dr. Flare was a very great man in the ecclesiastical court; in fact, by far the most eminent practitioner there. He was thoroughly versed in ecclesiastical law, and every species of learning connected with it; in fact, he had for the last thirty years been concerned in every case of the least importance which had come before that solemn, quaint, and mysterious tribunal. He was possessed of great acuteness and powers of arrangement, and had wonderful industry; but his capital quality was that of thoroughly identifying himself with his cause. Into every cause in which he was employed, he entered with all the keenness and vivacity which he could have displayed in one of vital personal consequence to himself. The moment he had possessed himself of the facts of his case, he became sincerely and really convinced, to the end of the chapter, that he was on the right side--that the legal and moral merits were with his client--that he ought to win--and that his opponents were among the most execrable of mankind. But, to be sure, such a _temper_ was his! So fierce and fiery, that it scorched everybody who came into contact with him. He was like an angry dog, who, if he have nothing else to snap at, will snap at his own tail--and Dr. Flare, when he had no one else to get into a passion with, would get into one with himself. His own quickness of perception was calculated to render him impatient and irritable under even the clearest and briefest statement which could be addressed to him. He was, in a manner, the victim of his own _acumen nimium_. In spite of considerable impetuosity of temper, he was a kind, an honorable, and high-minded man; and when not in actual conflict, lived on very good terms with his grave and very learned brethren. In person, he was short and spare; his slight gray whiskers looked as if they had been calcined by his cheeks, which, though thin, were of a florid red color; his forehead was ample; and there was an expression about his piercing gray eye which seemed to ask with a curse, of any one entering, "why d'ye interrupt me?" When Mr. Pounce and Mr. Runnington entered his room--which was covered with papers and open books--the doctor was settling, _in furore_, Articles extending over many hundred folios, against an unhappy curate, flourishing on forty pounds a-year in Rutlandshire, "_touching and concerning his soul's health, and the lawful correction and reformation of his manners and excesses_," (such was the solemn and affectionate strain in which the reverend delinquent was addressed,) for having refused to baptize a child by the name of "JUDAS ISCARIOT"--that being the name desired to be given to his infant by a blasphemous little Radical cobbler, a chattering infidel, who sought, by that means, to evince his insane hatred of the Christian religion. Now, Dr. Flare was