The upper lobby was a small, dirty, and sombre-looking outwork of the vast establishment. A huge clock hung against one of the walls—a roasting fire burnt in the grate—and a stout, elderly turnkey, who spoke with a provincial accent, was seated on a high stool near the inner door, watching the persons who came out of the prison, and on whose countenance the glare of a powerful light was thrown by a tin reflector. Grouped near him were several char-women and messengers, engaged in the double occupation of discussing a pot of the best ale and the scandal of the Bench; while another turnkey—a short, active, bustling little fellow, who rejoiced in the nick-name of "Buffer"—was seated inside a small enclosure formed by wood-work breast-high, examining a greasy and well-thumbed book containing sundry hieroglyphics which were supposed to be entries of the prisoners' names.

To Mr. Buffer was Mr. Frank Curtis duly introduced by the tipstaff; and the young gentleman's appellations were forthwith inscribed in the greasy book. He was then desired to pay his gate-fees, which he accordingly did; and, these little matters being settled, Mr. Buffer politely informed him that he might "go inside." The head turnkey—who was the stout, elderly man above alluded to—thereupon opened the door at which he was seated; and Captain O'Blunderbuss led the way, first across a small yard, next through the lower lobby—and thence into the grand enclosure of the King's Bench itself.

Captain O'Blunderbuss turned sharp round to the left, and stopped in admiration before a low building with a roof slanting down from the high wall against which it stood.

"There!" cried the gallant officer, in an ecstacy of enthusiasm: "what place should you be afther taking that to be?"

"Why—I should say it was the scullery or the coal-cellars," replied Frank.

"Be Jasus! me dear frind—and you're insulthing the finest fature in this fine prison," exclaimed the captain: "it's the coffee-house."

Mr. Curtis did not like to say how deeply he was disappointed at the unpromising exterior of an establishment which his companion seemed so especially to admire; and he therefore silently followed his guide into the coffee-room, which was just large enough to contain four very little tables and yield accommodation to about a dozen people at a time.

There was nearly that number present when Captain O'Blunderbuss and Frank Curtis entered the place; and as there were not two seats disengaged, the gallant officer put his arms akimbo, fixed his eyes sternly on a stout, inoffensive-looking old gentleman, and, without positively addressing his words to him, exclaimed, "Be the holy poker-r! and I should advise some one to be afther making room on a binch for my frind and myself—or I'll know the rayson why!"

The inoffensive-looking gentleman shrank dismayed into a corner, and, two or three others pressing closer together, sufficient space was obtained to afford Captain O'Blunderbuss and Mr. Frank Curtis seats; and the former, as he took his place at a table, cast a particularly ferocious glance around on the assembled company, as much as to say, "Be the power-rs! and ye'd betther not be afther having any of your nonsense with me!" But as no one at the moment seemed at all inclined to make even an attempt to interfere with the gallant gentleman, his countenance gradually lost its menacing aspect; and he ordered the waiter—a slip-shod, dirty boy—to bring a bottle of wine, spirits not being allowed.

The company presented to the view of Mr. Frank Curtis rather a motley aspect. There was a sample of nearly all kinds of social distinctions,—a sprig of the aristocracy—a broken-down sporting gentleman—a decayed tradesman—a bankrupt merchant—an insolvent parson—a ruined gamester—a prize-fighter—a horse-chaunter—an attorney, who had over-reached himself—a poor author—and one or two others who bore the vague and much misappropriated denomination of "gentleman." All these were herding together in a glorious state of democratic equality; for a debtors' prison goes far to level distinctions, the lordling being very often glad to obtain a draught of ale from the pewter-pot of a butcher.

The entrance of Captain O'Blunderbuss and Frank Curtis, both of whom were taken for new prisoners and stared at accordingly, seemed to have interrupted a conversation that was previously going on;—and for a few minutes a dead silence prevailed. But at last, when the wine which the captain had ordered was brought in, and that gallant gentleman and Curtis gave evident proofs of an inclination to enjoy themselves by enquiring likewise for cigars, the company recovered the feeling of hilarity on which the awful appearance of O'Blunderbuss had seemed for a few minutes to throw a complete damper.

"Well, how did Jackson get on to-day at Portugal Street?" enquired a rakish, dissipated looking young gentleman, who was smoking a cigar and drinking a pint of Port-wine.

"He got sent back for six months," answered the person to whom the question was put, and who was a stout, big man, in very seedy attire. "It seems that his schedule was made up of accommodation bills, and the opposition was desperate."

"You talk of accommodation bills, Muggles," observed the young gentleman; "why, all my debts are in paper of that kind. There's seventeen thousand pounds against me at the gate; and I'd take my affidavit that I never had more than three thousand in actual value. So I suppose I shall get it from the old Commissioner?"

"No, you won't, Pettifer, my boy," cried a short, elderly, dapper-looking man, putting down a quart pot in which his countenance had been buried for upwards of a minute before he began to speak; "your father's a lord—and that's enough," he added, looking mysteriously around.

"Well, so he is," said the Honourable Mr. Pettifer, lolling back in a very aristocratic manner, and speaking for the behoof of Captain O'Blunderbuss and Frank Curtis; "it's true that my father is Lord Cobbleton, and that I'm his second son. But, after all—what's a nobleman's second son?"

"Be Jasus! and what indeed?" cried the captain. "Why, my grandfather was Archbishop of Dublin—and my father was his son—and I'm my father's son—and yet, be the power-rs! I'm only a capthain now! But if I hadn't half a million, or some thrifle of the kind locked up in Chancery, I should be afther rowlling in my carriage—although I do keep a buggy and a dog-cart, as it is—and my frind Curthis here, jintlemen, wouldn't be in the Binch for two hunthred thousand pounds, as he is and bad luck to it!"

"Well—but you know, captain," said Frank, who was determined not to be behind his gallant companion in the art of lying, and who therefore very readily took up the cue prepared for him,—"you know, captain, that the moment my god-father the Duke comes home, I shall be all right."

"Right!—right as a thrivet, me boy!" vociferated O'Blunderbuss; "and then we'll carry on the war-r-r with a vengeance."

These remarks on the part of the captain and Frank Curtis produced a deep impression upon the greater portion of the company present; but two or three of the oldest prisoners tipped each other the wink slyly, as much as to say, "Ain't they coming it strong?"—although they did not dare provoke the ire of the ferocious Hibernian by any overt display of their scepticism.

"Speaking of Chancery," said an old, miserable-looking man, in a wretchedly thread-bare suit of black, and whose care-worn countenance showed an intimate acquaintance with sorrow,—"speaking of Chancery," he repeated, leaning forward from the corner in which he had hitherto remained silent and almost unobserved,—"you can't know Chancery, sir—begging your pardon—better or more bitterly than I do."

"Ah! tell the gentlemen your story, Prout," exclaimed one of the company. "'Pon my soul 'tis a hard case, and a stain upon a civilised country.

"A stain!" ejaculated the old man, whose name appeared to be Prout;—"a stain!" he cried, in a tone of painful irony:—"it is a horror—an abomination—an atrocity that demands vengeance on those legislators who know that such abuses exist and who will not remedy them! Chancellors—Vice-Chancellors—Judges—Law-Lords—Members of Parliament—Attorney-Generals—Solicitor-Generals—all, all for the last two-and-twenty years, so help me God! have been familiar with my case—and yet the Court of Chancery remains as it is, the most tremendous abuse—the most damnable Inquisition—the most grinding, soul-crushing, heart-breaking engine of torture that the ingenuity of man ever yet invented! Yes—all that—and more—more, if I could find stronger language to express myself in—is that earthly reflection of hell—the Court of Chancery!"

The old man had spoken with a volubility which had increased in quickness and in emphasis until it positively grew painful to hear;—and his countenance became flushed with a hectic, unhealthy red—and his eyes, usually leaden and dull, were fired with an unnatural lustre—and his chest heaved convulsively—and his lips quivered with the dreadful excitement produced in his attenuated and worn-out frame by the remembrance of his wrongs.

Remembrance!—as if he ever forgot them! No—the Chancery Court was the subject of his thoughts by day and his dreams by night: every thing he heard, or saw, or read, was so tortured by his morbid imagination as to bear some analogy, remote or near, to the proceedings of the Chancery Court;—when he had a meal, he wondered that the Chancery Court had left it to him—and when he had none, he said that the Chancery Court made him starve;—if he felt in tolerably good health, it was because he heard of some case in Chancery even more flagrant than his own—and that was a consolation to his diseased mind; and if he felt ill which was nearly always the case, he declared that the Chancery Court made him so:—in fact, he was truly a victim, in every sense and way, of that tremendous tribunal which has instruments of torture far more terrible for the feelings than those which the Inquisition of Spain ever invented for the body!

"Yes," exclaimed Prout, after a few moments' pause, "and all that diabolical tyranny is carried on under the semblance and with the solemn forms of justice. You go into a fine court, where you see a man of splendid intellect, fine education, and profound knowledge, seated in a chair, with the wig and gown; and before him are rows of barristers almost as learned as himself. Well—would you not think that you were in a tribunal worthy of the civilisation of this country! Yet—better were it if savages from the South Sea Islands became your judges; better to die upon the threshold of that court, than enter its walls. It is a damnable and a cursed tyranny, I repeat; and the English are a weak—a pusillanimous—a spaniel-like race, that they do not rise in rebellion against that monstrous tribunal!"

Again he paused, overpowered by excitement:—but there was something terribly real and awfully sincere—aye, and sternly true—in that man's denunciations!

"Yes—I say," he resumed, after having refreshed himself from a pewter-pot near him—though there had been a time when he was accustomed to drink wine,—"the English people are a nation of paltry cowards for allowing this hideous Chancery Court to uprear its head amongst them. Did not the French destroy their Bastille?—and was the Bastille ever half so bad, in one way, as this Chancery Court is in another? It is all useless for two or three people to declaim, or two or three authors to write, against such a flagrant abuse. 'Tis a public grievance, and must be put down by the public hand! The whole body of lawyers are against law-reform—and the profession of the law has vast influence upon both Houses of Parliament. From the Houses of Parliament, then, we have no hope: the strong hand of the people must do it. You might as well ask the Lords to abolish hereditary aristocracy, or the King to dethrone himself, as expect the Houses of Parliament to sweep away the Chancery Court."

"But could we do without it?" enquired an attentive listener.

"Do without it!" exclaimed Prout, indignantly—almost contemptuously, at the nature of the question: "certainly we can! France does without it—Holland does without it—Prussia does without it—Switzerland does without it—and the United States do without it;—and where is the law of property better administered than in those countries? There the transfer of land, or the bequeathing of other property, is as simple as that of merchandize or stock; but here—here, in England, which vaunts its freedom and its civilization, the process is encumbered with forms and deeds which leave the whole arrangement liable to flaws, difficulties, and endless embarrassments. Talk of Equity indeed! 'tis the most shameless mockery of justice ever known even amongst barbarians. But let me tell you an anecdote? In 1763, a suit was commenced in Chancery relative to some lawful property on which there was a windmill. The cause was not referred to the Master till 1796—thirty-three years having elapsed, and the lawyers, who had grown old during the proceedings, not having been idle. In the Master's office did the case remain till 1815—though the new lawyers who had succeeded the old batch that had died off in the meantime, were as active as the matter would allow them to be. Well—in 1815 the Master began to look into the business; but, behold! the windmill had disappeared—it had tumbled down—it had wasted away into dust—not a trace of it remained!" actually shrieked out the old man, in the excitement of his story.^[44]

"Thus the affair was fifty-two years in Chancery, and was knocked on the head after all?" observed one of the company present.

"While Law slept, Time was awake and busy, you see," said Prout, with a bitter irony which actually chilled the hearts of his auditors. "But I can give you plenty of examples of the infernal—heart-breaking delays of Chancery—and my own amongst the rest presently," he continued. "There is the case of Bute versus Stuart: it began in 1793—and in 1813 a step was made in the cause!^[45] Then, again, you have the case of the Attorney-General versus Trevelyan: it commenced in 1685, and is an affair involving an endowment for a Grammar-School at Morpeth. This cause never will be finished!^[46] But how much property do you suppose there is locked up in Chancery—eh? Ah! now I am going to tell you something astounding indeed—and yet as true as the Gospel! Thirty-eight millions sterling are locked up in that dreadful tribunal. A tribunal!—no—it is a sepulchre—a tomb—a grave in which all justice and all hopes are interred! But you will say that this enormous fund is only as it were in temporary trust, to be in due time portioned out to its rightful owners. Pshaw!—nonsense! More than one-third concerns persons who are dead and have left no heirs, or else whose representatives are ignorant of their rights. The Suitors' Fund is a bank of plunder—of shameful, diabolical plunder effected under the forms of the law!"

"But what about your own case, old fellow?" enquired the Honourable Mr. Pettifer.

"I'll tell you in a moment, gentlemen," cried Prout, rejoiced to observe the interest created by his strictures on the most hellish tribunal that ever disgraced a civilised country. "Twenty-five years ago," he said, "I was a prosperous man, having a good business in the City; and I had managed to save four thousand pounds by dint of strict economy and the closest attention to my affairs. A lawyer—a friend of mine—told me of a favourable opportunity to place the sum out at good interest and on the best possible security. A gentleman, in fact, wanted to borrow just that amount on mortgage, he having a capital estate. The matter was fully investigated, and the security was considered unexceptionable. So I lent the money; and for three years the interest was regularly paid, and all went on well. The gentleman suddenly died; and his nephew, who inherited the estate, hunted out an old entail, effected a hundred and fifty years previously, and of the existence of such an entail no mention had been made in subsequent deeds. So the nephew would not acknowledge the validity of the mortgage, and refused to pay me a fraction of my four thousand pounds. He would not even settle the interest. I was therefore forced into Chancery; and seven years afterwards I got a decree in my favour, but I was sent into the Master's Office on account of certain details which I will not stop to explain to you. This was fifteen years ago—and I am still in Chancery! I have spent three thousand pounds in costs—and am totally ruined. The excitement and worry of law made me neglect my business: my affairs fell into confusion—my creditors took all my stock in trade—and here have I been eleven years for the balance of my liabilities. Twenty-two years have I been engaged in law—and have not yet got justice! And yet I am told that I live in a civilised country, where the laws are based on consummate wisdom, and where the meanest as well as the highest individual is sure to obtain justice. Justice indeed!—such justice as one finds in the Chancery Court! My original claim was for four thousand pounds—and I have spent three thousand in costs, and owe my lawyer five hundred pounds more. But what do you think of this? Eight years ago a written question was put by the Master to the respondent in the suit; and it is still a matter of dispute whether he is to answer it or not! Here's law for you—here's justice! Why—it is enough to make a man curse himself for belonging to a country in which such things take place: it is enough to make me ashamed of being an Englishman! Suppose a savage from the South Sea Islands came to England—beheld all the glitter and glory of our outward appearance of civilisation—studied our language, and was then told of such cases as these? What would he think. He would say, 'After all, you are in reality a very barbarous people; and I shall be glad when I get back to my own far-off island!'"^[47]

"As far as all this goes, you are right enough," observed an attorney, who was one of the company present: "but had you gone much farther, you would have been equally correct. You may denounce nearly all our laws and statutes to be radically bad and a disgrace to civilisation. But it is useless to hope that an efficient reform will be ever effected by the Parliament; because the Parliament is loth to interfere with existing usages, and is afraid to meddle with existing rights. Nothing short of a Revolution can possibly accomplish a proper change."

"Why—this is treason!" exclaimed the Honourable Mr. Pettifer, his aristocratic feelings deeply wounded by the lawyer's bold and manly declaration.

"It may be treason—but it is nevertheless the truth," said the attorney, with the cool firmness of a man entertaining an honest conviction of the justice of his observations. "I declare most of our laws to be a disgrace and a shame. In France all the laws are contained in one book, accessible to every person: here, in this country, they are totally inaccessible to the community in general. Do you think France would ever have had her Code without a Revolution?^[48] Do you know how silly, absurd, and contradictory are some of our statutes—those statutes which are approved of by the Law-Officers of the Crown, and enacted by wise senators? There is a statute, for example's sake,^[49] which decrees that one half of the penalty inflicted in a particular case is to go to the informer, and the other half to the King. And yet under this statute Judges sentence men to transportation—say, fourteen years' transportation, to be halved by the informer and the King! Then there are statutes still upon the book, and which, though unrepealed, could scarcely be put into execution without inflicting an odious tyranny. A statute of Edward VI. forbids agricultural labourers to hire themselves out, or be hired, by the day, and not for less than a year. By a statute of William and Mary, no peasant may sell goods in a town, except at a fair; and a statute of Henry VII. decrees, under severe penalties, that no cattle shall be killed in a walled town, nor in Cambridge. There is also a statute, I forget of which reign, enacting that no shoemaker may be a tanner, nor a tanner a shoemaker. The laws relating to Marriage are in many respects absurd, and in others obscure. A marriage contracted by persons under age, by means of license, without the consent of their parents, is unlawful; but such persons may contract a lawful marriage by banns, although without the consent of their parents. Thousands and thousands of persons have been led to believe that it is lawful for a man to marry his deceased wife's sister; whereas it is not lawful, and the issue of such a marriage is illegitimate."

At this moment the learned gentleman was interrupted by the clanging of a loud bell, carried by a person who was proceeding round the main building of the prison, and who every now and then stopped ringing for the purpose of vociferating as loud as he could—"Strangers, women, and children, all out!"

"Shall you have to leave?" demanded Frank Curtis, in a whisper to his friend the captain.

"Divil a hap'orth of it, me boy!" exclaimed O'Blunderbuss. "The person who keeps the Coffee-house will be glad to give me a bed as well as yourself; for money, frind Cur-r-tis, procures everything in this blissed Spike-Island."

Another half-hour was passed in discourse on various topics, the inmates of the Coffee-house parlour having become wearied of commenting upon the laws of their country; and, at the expiration of that interval renewed shouts, now emanating from the immediate vicinity of the lower lobby, warned all strangers to quit the prison. At the same time the parlour was rapidly cleared, O'Blunderbuss and Frank Curtis alone remaining there:—for it seemed to be a rule on the part of the prisoners to rush to the gate, for the purpose of seeing the "strangers" take their departure.

The captain now gave a furious pull at the bell; and, when the slip-shod waiter appeared, he demanded a conference with the keeper of the Coffee-house. This request was speedily complied with; and satisfactory arrangements were entered into for beds. Another bottle of wine was ordered, the captain persuading Curtis that it would be better for him to take his first survey of all the grand features of the Bench in the morning, and to pass the evening in conviviality. This they accordingly did until eleven o'clock, when the lights in the parlour were put out, and the two gentlemen were shown to their respective bed-chambers—the said chambers being each about twice as big as a coffin, and quite as inconveniently angular.