"You mean the narrow old street that used to run across the site of
what is now the Gaiety Theatre?"

Mr. Lowes-Parlby smiled in his most charming manner.

"Yes, my lord, I believe the witness refers to the same street you
mention, though, if I may be allowed to qualify your lordship's
description of the locality, may I suggest that it was a little further
east--at the side of the old Globe Theatre, which was adjacent to St.
Martin's in the Strand? That is the street you were all arguing about,
isn't it, Mrs. Dawes?"

"Well, sir, my aunt who died from eating tinned lobster used to work at
a corset-shop. I ought to know."

His lordship ignored the witness. He turned to the counsel rather
peevishly.

"Mr. Lowes-Parlby, when I was your age I used to pass through Wych
Street every day of my life. I did so for nearly twelve years. I think
it hardly necessary for you to contradict me."

The counsel bowed. It was not his place to dispute with a chief
justice, although that chief justice be a hopeless old fool; but
another eminent K.C., an elderly man with a tawny beard, rose in the
body of the court, and said:

"If I may be allowed to interpose, your lordship, I also spent a great
deal of my youth passing through Wych Street. I have gone into the