A little later he will rise still higher, and will become the almost
recognised medium through which really fashionable intelligence
is converted into common knowledge. In this position he will allow
nothing to escape him, and if one of the highest persons in the land
should invite six friends to dinner, their names will on the following
morning be known to the Jack of all Journalisms. It is unnecessary to
say that in the course of this career he acquires, not only notoriety,
but enemies, who watch eagerly for the false step that shall bring
him to the ground. In spite of his craft, he is inevitably driven
from boldness into rashness, and after waging a fruitless war against
rascals more accomplished than himself, he, with a courage that
scarcely atones for his imprudence, enters the witness-box, and,
a flood of light having been thrown upon his past career, he finds
himself for two nights blazoned in enormous letters on the posters
of the evening papers, and is compelled, in the end, to submit to an
adverse verdict, and to retire, "it may be for years or it may be
for ever," from the open practice of a profession in which he had so
distinguished himself.
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