But there is no humorous comment to
be made upon the barrister--unless it is to call him "my learned
friend." He has much more right than the actor to claim to be a
member of the profession. I don't know why. Perhaps it is because
he walks about the Temple in a top-hat.
So many of one's acquaintances at some time or other have "eaten
dinners" that one hardly dares to say anything against the
profession. Besides, one never knows when one may not want to be
defended. However, I shall take the risk, and put the barrister
in the dock. "Gentlemen of the jury, observe this well-dressed
gentleman before you. What shall we say about him?"
Let us begin by asking ourselves what we expect from a
profession. In the first place, certainly, we expect a living,
but I think we want something more than that. If we were offered
a thousand a year to walk from Charing Cross to Barnet every day,
reasons of poverty might compel us to accept the offer, but we
should hardly be proud of our new profession. We should prefer to
earn a thousand a year by doing some more useful work. Indeed, to
a man of any fine feeling the profession of Barnet walking would
only be tolerable if he could persuade himself that by his
exertions he was helping to revive the neglected art of
pedestrianism, or to make more popular the neglected beauties of
Barnet; if he could hope that, after his three- hundredth
journey, inquisitive people would begin to follow him, wondering
what he was after, and so come suddenly upon the old Norman
church at the cross-roads, or, if they missed this, at any rate
upon a much better appetite for their dinner.
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