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Mr Jabberjee places himself in the hands of a solicitor—with certain reservations.
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XXII
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I concluded my foregoing instalment, narrating my service of a writ for breaching a promise of marriage, with a spirited outburst of insouciance and devilmaycarefulness.
But such courage of a Dutch evaporated deplorably on closer perusal of the said writ, which contained the peremptory mandate that I was to enter my appearance within the incredibly short notice of eight days, or the judgment would be given in my absence!
Now it was totally out of the question that I was to prepare a long complicated defence, and have the requisite witnesses, and also perfect myself in the customs and etiquettes of Common Law procedure, all in such a ridiculously brief period; and yet, if I remained perdu with a hidden head, I could not hope for even the minimum of justice, since, heigh-ho! les absents ont toujours tort. So that I shed blistering and scalding tears like a spanked child, to find myself confronting such a devil of a deep sea, and my day was dismal and my night a nonentity, until, by a great piece of potluck, on going up
