German relatives of an august royal family; Punch sets up his theater,
sure of an audience, and occasionally of a halfpenny from the swarming
occupants of the houses; women scream after their children for
loitering in the gutter, or, worse still, against the husband who
comes reeling from the gin-shop. There is a ceaseless din and life in
these courts, out of which you pass into the tranquil, old-fashioned
quadrangle of Shepherd's Inn. In a mangy little grass-plat in the
center rises up the statue of Shepherd, defended by iron railings from
the assaults of boys. The hall of the Inn, on which the founder's
arms are painted, occupies one side of the square, the tall and
ancient chambers are carried round other two sides, and over the
central archway, which leads into Oldcastle-street, and so into the
great London thoroughfare.

The Inn may have been occupied by lawyers once: but the laity have
long since been admitted into its precincts, and I do not know that
any of the principal legal firms have their chambers here. The offices
of the Polwheedle and Tredyddlum Copper Mines occupy one set of the
ground-floor chambers; the Registry of Patent Inventions and Union of
Genius and Capital Company, another--the only gentleman whose name
figures here and in the "Law List," is Mr. Campion, who wears
mustaches, and who comes in his cab twice or thrice in a week; and
whose West End offices are in Curzon-street, Mayfair, where Mrs.
Campion entertains the nobility and gentry to whom her husband lends
money. There, and on his glazed cards, he is Mr. Somerset Campion;
here he is Campion and Co.; and the same tuft which ornaments his
chin, sprouts from the under lip of the rest of the firm. It is
splendid to see his cab-horse harness blazing with heraldic bearings,
as the vehicle stops at the door leading to his chambers. The horse
flings froth off his nostrils as he chafes and tosses under the