Bradley laughed. "I'm afraid I've had more practice--though not as
lucrative a one--as surgeon or doctor."

"But you're regularly on the rolls, you know; you're entered as
Counsel, and all that sort of thing?" continued Mainwaring, with great
seriousness.

"Well, yes," replied Bradley, much amused. "I'm afraid I must plead
guilty to that."

"It's not a bad sort of thing," said Mainwaring, naively, ignoring
Bradley's amusement. "I've got a cousin who's gone in for the law. Got
out of the army to do it--too. He's a sharp fellow."

"Then you DO allow a man to try many trades--over there," said Miss
Macy, demurely.

"Yes, sometimes," said Mainwaring, graciously, but by no means certain
that the case was at all analogous.

Nevertheless, as if relieved of certain doubts of the conventional
quality of his host's attainments, he now gave himself up to a very
hearty and honest admiration of Bradley. "You know it's awfully kind of
him to talk to a fellow like me who just pulled through, and never got
any prizes at Oxford, and don't understand the half of these things," he
remarked confidentially to Mrs. Bradley. "He knows more about the things
we used to go in for at Oxford than lots of our men, and he's never been
there. He's uncommonly clever."