moreover, as a Counsel, obtain increased professional distinction.
However, I was embarrassed by the presence of my Wife, when I came
to consider the best mode in which marital authority might be
assumed to raise the question of the right of _habeas corpus_. I
had returned to my room before the opening of the Registration
Court at Lambville-cum-Minton, in rather a disturbed frame of mind.
Truth to tell, my Wife, having learned that political feeling
was rising so high in the town that it was possible that the
Deputy-Assistant-Revising-Barrister might be assaulted by either or
both of the rival factions, had done her best to dissuade me from
taking my customary seat.

"What shall I do, to say nothing of the darling children, if you are
brought home on a hurdle?" she sobbed out.

I assured her that there was a very remote risk of my succumbing to
such a fate, as the conveyance home on a hurdle raised the presumption
that the victim had been hunting, a sport in which I seldom, I may
say, never indulged. But this explanation did not reassure her,
and she left me in tears. Her emotion caused me much pain, the more
especially as my proposed task seemed to me, under the circumstances,
a species of domestic treason. However, I hardened my heart, and sat
down to consider the facts of the case. To allow the right of seizure
to be argued, it would be necessary to take my Wife out of the custody
of someone other than myself. Her mother, a most estimable old lady,
with whom I have had many a pleasant and exciting game of backgammon,
seemed a right and proper person to assist me in carrying out my
project. But the objection immediately occurred to me that it would
be an exceedingly difficult matter to induce her to hold my Wife from
me unless I desired her to take such a course. But if I made this