Page:Sylvester Sound the Somnambulist (1844).djvu/411

evidence, he called, with the view of improving it, two or three times every day upon Mr. Wilks, until he found—and it really appeared to him to be the strangest thing in nature—that Mr. Wilks was never at home when he called! He was continually out. Nothing could be like it. Go when he might, Mr. Wilks was from home. He would occasionally wait an hour or two in the outer office—either reading the paper or conversing with one of the clerks—for there was one very nice young man in that office; all the rest, in the reverend gentleman's judgment, behaved with too much levity, for they were always laughing; they laughed whenever he entered, and continued to laugh all the time he remained—but it mattered not how many hours he waited, Mr. Wilks never returned while he was there.

This extraordinary fact engendered in his mind a strong suspicion that Mr. Wilks neglected his business! and he began to lament that some other solicitor had not been engaged in the case; but as the doctor and Mr. Scholefield—who at once perceived the cause of Mr. Wilks's extraordinary absence on those occasions—set his mind at rest on that point, he regularly conveyed his ideas twice a day to Mr. Wilks on a sheet of foolscap paper, which he invariably filled, and which Mr. Wilks invariably put under the table.

The morning of the day at length arrived: the day on which the trial was appointed to take place: and the reverend gentleman rose at four, and took a constitutional walk round Hyde Park. As he felt very fidgetty he walked very fast, but Time seemed to fly much more slowly than usual. He had to be at Tom's at eight o'clock, but before six he felt quite knocked up. Two hours remained. How was he to pass those two hours? A thought struck him! He would go down to Westminster Hall. He would look at the building, and ascertain whether he thought it likely that justice would be administered that day. He accordingly wended his way towards the Hall, and as he met sundry females, whom he imagined impure, he walked in the middle of the road, conceiving that expostulation would be useless.

On reaching Palace Yard, he stood, and looked, and contemplated deeply, and wildly conjectured, and then went over the whole of his evidence, which, of course, he thought perfectly conclusive.

"Cab, your honour!" said a man, who approached him.

"No, my good man," replied the reverend gentleman: "I was merely looking at Westminster Hall. There is a trial coming on to-day in which I am interested."

"Indeed!" cried the cabman; "what trial is it?"

"It is a crim. con. trial, 'Julian versus Sound,' but my friend—who is the defendant in the action—is a somnambulist."

"Beg pardon, sir; a how much?"

"A somnambulist! A person who walks in his sleep!"

"Oh! one of them there svells—I see!"

"He is innocent of the crime of which he is accused: quite inocent."

"No doubt."

"But then the plaintiff in this case will not believe it."