But
the seat when obtained must be kept in possession from morning to
evening, and the fight must be renewed from day to day. And the
benches are hard, and the space is narrow, and you feel that the
under-sheriff would prod you with his sword if you ventured to
sneeze, or to put to your lips the flask which you have in your
pocket. And then, when all the benchfellows go out to lunch at
half-past one, and you are left to eat your dry sandwich without room
for your elbows, a feeling of unsatisfied ambition will pervade you.
It is all very well to be the friend of an under-sheriff, but if you
could but have known the judge, or have been a cousin of the real
sheriff, how different it might have been with you!
But you may be altogether independent, and, as a matter of right,
walk into an open English court of law as one of the British public.
You will have to stand of course,--and to commence standing very
early in the morning if you intend to succeed in witnessing any
portion of the performance. And when you have made once good your
entrance as one of the British public, you are apt to be a good deal
knocked about, not only by your public brethren, but also by those
who have to keep the avenues free for witnesses, and who will
regard you from first to last as a disagreeable excrescence on the
officialities of the work on hand.
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