Mystery of disappearance of other candidates explained. Here they
are--all at this table--"all silent, and all called"! It seems that
this is the Barristers' part of the Hall, other the Students'.

Ceremony not over yet. After dinner we are invited, all twenty,
to dessert and wine with the Benchers--or rather, at the Benchers'
expense, because we don't really see and chat with these great men,
only a single representative, who presides at table in a long bare
room downstairs, resembling a cellar. Benchers' own Common-room above.
Why don't they invite us up there? Bencher, who has come down to
preside over this entertainment, has a rather forbidding air about
him. Seems to be thinking--"I don't care much for this sort of
function. Stupid old custom. But must keep it up, I suppose, for good
of Inn; and Benchers (hang them!) have deputed _me_ to take head of
the table to-night--probably because I look so desperately lively."

There _is_ a sort of "disinterred liveliness" (to quote Bishop
WILBERFORCE) about him, after all. Tries to joke. No doubt regards us
all as a pack of fools to join over-crowded profession--still, as we
_are_ here, he will try and forget that, in a few years, the majority
of us will probably be starving.

After an interval, Bored Bencher thinks it necessary to rise and
make little speech. Assures us (_Query_--hyprocrisy?) that we are
all extremely likely to attain to high positions at the Bar. Says
something feebly humorous about Woolsack. Bad taste, because we can't
_all_ sit on Woolsack at once; and mention of it excites feelings of
emulation, almost of animosity, towards other new-fledged Barristers.
I am conscious, for instance, of distinct repulsion towards man on my