A Young Man's Year by Antonio Hope

The next day there occurred to Arthur Lisle -- whose mind was a thousand miles away from such things -- a most unexpected event. The news of it came by telephone from Henry, who ventured to bespeak Mr. Lisle's immediate attention; he was not quite sure that he would get it, so reprehensibly neglectful had Mr. Lisle's professional conduct been of late. A brief had arrived, not somebody else's to be 'held,' but actually for Arthur himself -- a brief in the Westminster County Court. The case would come on for trial in two days' time.

His first impulse was to send the brief back, to fly from it; not so much now because it frightened him as because it clashed with the whole present temper of his mind. But full as he was of fancies and vanities, he had somewhere a residuum of sober sense. Did he really mean to turn his back on work, to abandon his profession? Not merely to neglect preparation and opportunities, as he had been doing, but to refuse work actually there? That was a different thing -- a decision too momentous. If he refused this brief, he would scarcely dare to show himself at his chambers, to face Henry again. He braced himself up, and in a mixture of apprehension, annoyance, and surprise, took his way to the Temple -- instead of going down to Wimbledon to watch lawn-tennis.