5o8
77¿<? Green Bag.
The portly-looking individual, wearing a gorgeous scarlet gown, who gives various directions, is the head-porter, and he is so called on the Incus a non lucendo plan, be cause he is seldom employed to carry any thing, except perhaps a letter. In like manner, the women called "laundresses" who attend to the rooms ("chambers") in the Inns of Court, are so termed because they never wash anything at all, which in some instances is but too painfully true. But the "head-porter" is carrying something this evening, in the shape of an enormous baton with a silver knob big enough to pro duce about twenty dollars' worth of silver. Then there is another important-looking gen tleman, of graver and more anxious demeanor, wearing a black gown, who seems to be the life and soul of the preparations generally, and who moves about with such alacrity as to suggest an approach to the ubiquitous. This individual is the head-butler, and of course his position is one of serious respon sibility, especially on the present occasion. Being now robed, we enter the Hall. What a babel of tongues is here. " Have you got a mess?" is a question one hears on all sides. (An Inn of Court mess consists of four persons, the first man at the table being called the " Captain.") Then we hear, "Come and join our mess; I have a firstclass place up here," from a young student. "Oh, but you'll be turned down," answers his friend with a slightly consequential air; and we see that the latter, by his sleeved and more flowing robe, is a barrister, although a very junior one; hence his tone of import ance. " We sit by seniority on Grand Day," our learned young friend goes on to say, and languidly falls into a seat. In a few moments a voice is heard ad dressing the languid barrister. "When were you called, sir? " it asks. The voice proceeds from a form which might easily be that of the other's father, if not grandfather; but the question is put pro forma.
"Hilary '94," is the answer. "Then I'm afraid I must trouble you to move, for I was called in Hilary '65." Then the student previously corrected, says, "That's right, turn him out for his cheek in coming up here," and the party of four moves leav ing the man who was called in 1865 in temporary possession, until someone called at an earlier date comes along. Eventually, however, everybody is properly located. There is an unquestionable aspect of dis tinction about the place this evening. The old Hall itself, in the centre of which is dis played the valuable silver of the Inn, seems to smile in the sunshine of the summer evening. Yet, as the light softly steals in through the stained glass forming the armo rial bearings of distinguished members of the Inn long since passed away, I seem to feel a sort of melancholy, in spite of all the gaiety around, from the consideration — which in sists upon forcing itself upon my mind — that the paths of law, like glory, " lead but to the grave." Moreover, the time-worn and grim-looking escutcheons of the old " read ers " which crowd the wainscoted walls have a decidedly forbidding appearance, and I find it impossible to avoid heaving a little sigh as I look up and see in front of me the name and arms of, say, Gulielmus Jones, Armiger, Cons. Domi. Regis, Lector Anct. 1745, Wil liam Jones, Esquire, Counsel of our Lord the King, Autumn Reader, etc., and wonder how much that learned gentleman enjoyed his Grand Days in the period oí comparative antiquity mentioned on his escutcheon. My business, however, is strictly with the present, and as one of the features of Grand Day dinner is that the mauvais quart d'heure monopolizes almost an hour, I have ample time to look around before dinner and see what is going on. It requires no great expenditure of specu lative power to comprehend the nature of the present assembly, numerous though it is. Each member of it will readily and with con siderable accuracy tell me who and what he
