tempted into a loose way

of letting bad things alone to take their own

bad course, and a loose belief that if the world go wrong it was in some

off-hand manner never meant to go right.

Thus, in the midst of the mud and at the heart of the fog, sits the

Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.

‟Mr. Tangle,” says the Lord High Chancellor, latterly something

restless under the eloquence of that learned gentleman.

‟Mlud,” says Mr. Tangle. Mr. Tangle knows more of Jarndyce and

Jarndyce than anybody. He is famous for it—supposed never to have read

anything else since he left school.

‟Have you nearly concluded your argument?”

‟Mlud, no—variety of points—feel it my duty tsubmit—ludship,” is

the reply that slides out of Mr. Tangle.

‟Several members of the bar are still to be heard, I believe?” says the

Chancellor with a slight smile.

Eighteen of Mr. Tangle’s learned friends, each armed with a little

summary of eighteen hundred sheets, bob up like eighteen hammers in

a pianoforte, make eighteen bows, and drop into their eighteen places of

obscurity.

‟We will proceed with the hearing on Wednesday fortnight,” says the

Chancellor. For the question at issue is only a question of costs, a mere

bud on the forest tree of the parent suit, and really will come to a

settlement one of these days.

The Chancellor rises; the bar rises; the prisoner is brought forward in

a hurry; the man from Shropshire cries, My lord!” Maces, bags, and ‟

purses indignantly proclaim silence and frown at the man from

Shropshire.

‟In reference,” proceeds the Chancellor, still on Jarndyce and

Jarndyce, to the young girl—” ‟

Begludship’s pardon—boy,” says Mr. Tangle prematurely. In ‟ ‟

reference,” proceeds the Chancellor with extra distinctness, to theyoung girl and boy, the two young people”—Mr. Tangle crushed

— whom I directed to be in attendance to-day and who are now in my ‟

private room, I will see them and satisfy myself as to the expediency of

making the order for their residing with their uncle.”

Mr. Tangle on his legs again. Begludship’s pardon—dead.” ‟ ‟With their”—Chancellor looking through his double eye-glass at the

papers on his desk— grandfather.” ‟ ‟Begludship’s pardon—victim of rash action—brains.”

Suddenly a very little counsel with a terrific bass voice arises, fully

inflated, in the back settlements of the fog, and says, Will your lordship ‟

allow me? I appear for him. He is a cousin, several times removed. I am

not at the moment prepared to inform the court in what exact remove he

is a cousin, but he is a cousin.”

Leaving this address (delivered like a sepulchral message) ringing in

the rafters of the roof, the very little counsel drops, and the fog knows

him no more. Everybody looks for him. Nobody can see him.

‟I will speak with both the young people,” says the Chancellor anew,

‟and satisfy myself on the subject of their residing with their cousin. I

will mention the matter to-morrow morning when I take my seat.”

The Chancellor is about to bow to the bar when the prisoner is

presented. Nothing can possibly come of the prisoner’s conglomeration

but his being sent back to prison, which is soon done. The man from

Shropshire ventures another remonstrative My lord!” but the ‟

Chancellor, being aware of him, has dexterously vanished. Everybody

else quickly vanishes too. A battery of blue bags is loaded with heavy

charges of papers and carried off by clerks; the little mad old woman

marches off with her documents; the empty court is locked up. If all the

injustice it has committed and all the misery it has caused could only be

locked up with it, and the whole burnt away in a great funeral pyre—why

so much the better for other parties than the parties in Jarndyce and

Jarndyce!