He came of a family of landed proprietors, whose younger sons for generations had drifted always either to the Bar or the Law, and his name was well known in the purlieus of Lincoln's Inn before he himself had made it famous.

He was a persistent refuser of invitations, and his acquaintances in the fashionable world were comparatively few.

Yet every now and then he felt a mild interest in the people whom his companion assiduously pointed out to him.
"A fashionable restaurant, Francis, is rather like your Law Courts--it levels people up," the latter remarked.

"Louis, the head-waiter, is the judge, and the position allotted in the room is the sentence.

I wonder who is going to have the little table next but one to us.