_Counsel_. "I thank your Lordship for that assurance." _His Lordship_. "Please do not thank me, and do not provoke me." _Counsel_ (proceeds, slightly ruffled). He would take another case of Biblical history; it was without question an ass who had upon a certain occasion been the one to see when a Lion had stood in his path. Here the case was unhappily reversed; it was only the asses who couldn't see the Lion, as he ought to be seen in this case. _His Lordship_. "No, I cannot see that." _Counsel_. "Your Lordship only makes my remarks more pointed than I actually intended." _His Lordship_. "Please do not set cheap traps or you may one day get caught in them yourself." _Counsel_ (gallantly). "In that case, I can only hope that your Lordship may be there to extricate me by the nimbleness of your wit." _His Lordship_ (beaming round upon the Court, and especially upon Counsel). "Very pleasant, very clever; your speech interests me very much; pray continue!" _Learned Counsel_ (continuing). "Shakespeare, our best guide, philosopher, poet, thinker, and prophet, had fitly and most appropriately even foretold this very matter with regard to the Lion; maybe had prophesied it, when he told us there were sermons in stone and good in everything." _Judge_ (awakening, after dozing). "Good gracious! I always understood it was bronze." _Counsel_. "Ahem! Yes, my Lord, that is to say stone pedestal, bronze beast." _His Lordship_. "Very well, but when you quote for a purpose always quote with exact correctness." _Counsel_ (proceeds). "Did not the creature his Lordship had referred to as the great Pyg--Pyg--Pyg-----" _His Lordship_ (prompting). "No, no, not a pig, a Lion." _Counsel_ (bows, and with a supreme effort of memory recollects the word Pygmalion). "Had not the great Pygmalion so created Galatea that she verily became endowed with life, and may we not suppose that the genius of Sir Edwin Landseer, or whoever carved this wondrous lifelike Lion, might not also have endowed it with some such strange new form of existence? Was it reasonable to suppose that what had happened to Beauty might not also happen to the Beast? Take the simple exquisite statement of this child, this little boy Ridgwell, confirmed by his sister." _Judge_ (prompting). "No, no, you can only be actually confirmed by a Bishop." _Counsel_. "I spoke of another confirmation, my Lord." _His Lordship_. "Well, the issue, the issue, what does it show?" _Counsel_. "My Lord, I will explain at some length carefully." His Lordship immediately relapses into another short but placid slumber.