Large men half wet through--reeking, smelling most unwholesomely as the rain steams up from their clothes--are keeping the cold out of their stomachs by various spirituous appliances. The room is half covered with damp straw, which has been kicked in from the passage; the windows are closed, and there is a huge fire burning on the other side of that moist mass of humanity. On entering the room you feel that you breathe nothing but second-hand rain; a sojourn there you find to be impossible; the porter drinkers are still in your bed-room, even on your bed up-stairs. What are you to do? where are you to go? Back home you cannot. You have a summons in your pocket; you have been unfortunately present when Mr. Terence O'Flanagan squeezed the fair hand of Miss Letitia Murphy; false Mr. Terence O'Flanagan would not come to the matrimonial altar when required; fair Miss Letitia Murphy demands damages, and you must swear to the fact of the hand having been squeezed as aforesaid. Who can tell when the case may come on? Rumour comes from the clerk of the peace, town clerk, or some other clerk who sits there in pride of place, always conspicuous under the judge's feet, and whispers that Letitia Murphy, spinster, is coming on next. Attorneys' clerks have been round diligently to all witnesses, especially as it seems to yourself, warning you that the important hour is at hand--that on no account may you be absent, so much as ten minutes' walk from the court. Vainly you think to yourself that it can hardly be of such vital import that you, her father's friend, saw little Letty Murphy's hand ensconced one evening in the brawny palm of that false Lothario O'Flanagan; yes, of serious import is it--if not to Letty, or to Terence--yet to that facetious barrister, Mr. O'Laugher, who, at your expense, is going to amuse the dull court for a brief half-hour,--and of importance to yourself, who are about to become the laughing-stock of your county for the next twelve months. It is, therefore, evident that you cannot leave the filthy town with its running gutters--the filthy inn with its steamy stinking atmosphere, and bed-room porter drinkers for good and all, and let Lothario O'Flanagan, Spinster Letty, Lawyers Allewinde and O'Laugher, with Justice Kilpatrick, settle the matter by themselves their own way; but that you must, willy nilly, in spite of rain, crowd, and offensive smell, stay and help to settle it with them. Into court therefore return, unfortunate witness; other shelter have you none; and now being a man of strong nerves,--except when put into a chair to be stared at by judge, bar, grand jury, little jury, attorney, galleries, &c., &c.,--you can push your way into a seat, and listen with attention to the quiddities of the legally erudite Mr. Allewinde, as on behalf of his client he ingeniously attempts--nay, as he himself afterwards boasts to the jury, succeeds in making that disconcerted young gentleman in the witness chair commit perjury.