The plaintiff claims-- "(1.) That the court shall revoke probate of the said alleged will of the said Jonathan Meeson, bearing date the 10th day of November, 1885, granted to the defendants on the 21st day of May, 1886.
"(2.) A grant of letters of administration to the plaintiff with the will executed on or subsequent to the 22nd day of December,1885, annexed.
(Signed) JAMES SHORT." "May it please your Lordship." James began, again feeling dimly that he had read enough pleadings, "the defendants have filed an answer pleading that the will of the 22nd of December was not duly executed in accordance with the statute, and that the testator did not know and approve its contents, and an amended answer pleading that the said alleged will, if executed, was obtained by the undue influence of Augusta Smithers"-- and once more his nervousness overcame him, and he pulled up with a jerk.
Then came another pause even more dreadful than the first.
The Judge took another note, as slowly as he could, and once more cleared his throat; but poor James could not go on.

He could only wish that he might then and there expire, rather than face the hideous humiliation of such a failure.

But he would have failed, for his very brain was whirling like that of a drunken man, had it not been for an occurrence that caused him for ever after to bless the name of Fiddlestick, Q.C., as the name of an eminent counsel is not often blessed in this ungrateful world.

For Fiddlestick, Q.C., who, it will be remembered, was one of the leaders for the defendants, had been watching his unfortunate antagonist, till, realising how sorry was his plight, a sense of pity filled his learned breast.

Perhaps he may have remembered some occasion, in the dim and distant corner of the past, when he had suffered from a similar access of frantic terror, or perhaps he may have been sorry to think that a young man should lose such an unrivalled opportunity of making a name.