How lifelike that touch of the fussy man, who “seemede besier than he was”! But each line might serve as text for a long dissertation! The old court hours were early: the judges sat from eight till eleven, when your busy Serjeant would, after bolting his dinner, hie him to his pillar where he would hear his client’s story, “and take notes thereof upon his knee.” The parvys or pervyse of Paul’s--properly, only the church door--had come to mean the nave of the cathedral, called also “Paul’s Walk,” or “Duke Humphrey’s Walk,” from the supposed tomb of Duke Humphrey that stood there. In Tudor times it was the great lounge and common newsroom of London. Here the needy adventurer “dined with Duke Humphrey,” as the quaint euphemism ran; here spies garnered in popular opinion for the authorities. It was the very place for the lawyer to meet his client, yet had he other resorts: the round of the Temple Church and Westminster are noted as in use for consultations. Chaucer’s Serjeant “rood but hoomly” because he was travelling; in court he had a long priest-like robe, with a furred cape about his shoulders and a scarlet hood. The gowns were various, and sometimes parti-coloured. Thus, in 1555 we find each new Serjeant possessed of one robe of scarlet, one of violet, one of brown and blue, one of mustard and murrey, with tabards (short sleeveless coats) of cloths of the same colours. The cape was edged, first with lambskin, afterwards with more precious stuff. In Langland’s _Vision of Piers Plowman_ (1362) there is mention of this dress of the Serjeants, they are jibed at for their love of fees and so forth, after a fashion that is not yet extinct! But _the_ distinctive feature in the dress was the coif, a close-fitting head covering made of white lawn or silk. A badge of honour, it was worn on all professional occasions, nor was it doffed even in the King’s presence. In monumental effigies it is ever prominent. When a Serjeant resigned his dignity he was formally discharged from the obligation of wearing it. To discuss its exact origin were fruitless, yet one ingenious if mistaken conjecture may be noticed. Our first lawyers were churchmen, but in 1217 these were finally debarred from general practice in the courts. Many were unwilling to abandon so lucrative a calling, but what about the tonsure? “They were for decency and comeliness allowed to cover their bald pates with a coif, which had been ever since retained.” Thus the learned Serjeant Wynne in his tract on the antiquity and dignity of the order (1765). In Tudor times, if not before, fashion required the Serjeant to wear a small skull-cap of black silk or velvet on the top of the coif. This is very clearly shown in one of Lord Coke’s portraits. Under Charles II. lawyers, like other folk, began to wear wigs, the more exalted they were the bigger their perukes. It was wittily said that Bench and Bar went into mourning on Queen Anne’s