Praed, A.R.A.--but then I travelled
for a bit, and after that I felt more than ever I wanted to go in
for the Bar"--said David, with a charming smile which lit up his
young face ordinarily so staid). Stansfield consented that David
should come and read with him, and in many ways facilitated his
progress so materially and so kindly that more than once the
compunctious young Welshman thought of discarding the impersonation;
and might have done so had not this most estimable Stansfield died
of pneumonia in the last year of David's studenthood.
Of course the preliminary examination was easily and quickly passed.
David translated his bit of Caesar's commentaries, answered
brilliantly the questions about Alfred the Great, the Anglo-Norman
kings, the Constitutions of Clarendon, Magna Charta and Mortmain,
Henry the Eighth and the Reformation, the Civil War and
Protectorate of Cromwell, the Bill of Rights and the Holy Alliance.
He paid his fees and his "caution" money; he ate the requisite six
dinners--or more, as he found them excellent and convenient--in each
term, attended all the lectures that interested him, and passed the
subsidiary examinations on them with fair or even high credit; and
finally got through his "Call-to-the-Bar" examination with tolerable
success; at any rate he passed. A friend of the deceased
Stansfield--whose death was always one of the scars in Vivie's
memory--introduced him to one of the Masters of the Bench who signed
his "call" papers.
Pages:
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174