"All art--" Mr. Clarkson was beginning, when the policeman said "Grand
Jury?" and pushed him through a door into a large court. A vision of
middle-age was there gathering, and a murmur of complaint filled the
room--the hurried breakfast, the heat, the interrupted business, the
reported large number of prisoners, likely to occupy two days, or even
three.

Silence was called, and four or five elderly gentlemen in
black-and-scarlet robes--"wise in their wigs, and flamboyant as
flamingoes," as a daily paper said of the judges at the Coronation--some
also decorated with gilded chains and deep fur collars, in spite of the
heat, entered from a side door and took their seats upon a raised
platform. Each carried in his hand a nosegay of flowers, screwed up
tight in a paper frill with lace-work round the edges, like the bouquets
that enthusiasts or the management throw to actresses.

"Are those flowers to cheer the prisoners?" Mr. Clarkson whispered, "or
are they the rudimentary survivals of the incense that used to
counteract the smell and infection of gaol-fever?"

"Covent Garden," was the reply, and the list of jurors was called. The
first twenty-three were sent into another room to select their foreman,
and, though Mr. Clarkson had not the slightest desire to be chosen, he
observed that the other jurors did not even look in his direction.
Finally, a foreman was elected, no one knew for what reasons, and all
went back to the Court to be "charged." A gentleman in black-and-scarlet
made an hour's speech, reviewing the principal cases with as much
solemnity as if the Grand Jury's decisions would affect the Last
Judgment, and Mr. Clarkson began to realise his responsibility so
seriously that when the jurors were dismissed to their duties, he took