"
"What's the good of doing that?" I want to know.
"None whatever. An old custom, that's all. A sort of legal fiction,
you know." (_Query_--If a Queen's Counsel writes a novel, isn't _that_
a real legal fiction?) "You'll feel rather like a little boy going
to a new school. Judges look at you with an air of 'I say, you new
feller, what's your name? Where do you come from? What House are
you in?--then a good kick. They can't kick you, so they glare at you
instead. Interesting ceremony. Ta, ta!"
It turns out as my friend says. But previously there is the
other little formality of purchasing the trailing garments of the
Profession. Go to a wig-and-gown-maker near the Law Courts. Ask to see
different kinds of wigs.
"We only make one kind," replies the wig-man, pityingly. "The Patent
Ventilating Anticalvitium. You'll find it as light as a feather,
almost. Made of superfine 'orse-'air." He says this as if he never
got his material from anything below the value of a Derby Winner.
"Why do you call it the Anticalvitium?" I ask.
"Because it don't make the 'air fall off, Sir, as all other wigs do."
Do they? Another objection to the profession. Wish I had known this
before I began to grind for the Bar Exam. Wig-man measures my head.
"Rather large size, Sir," he remarks. Says it as if I must have
water on the brain at the very least.
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