Henry Northcote

It was in no amiable mood that Mr. Weekes went to lunch with his junior. All his arrangements had been spoiled by “the fellow on the other side.” Instead of the case being in a stage that would permit him to leave it to devote his afternoon to business in another court, it began to seem that it might be prolonged indefinitely.

“So like a beginner,” said the leader to his junior; “must spread himself on the slightest opportunity. When he’s been at it as long as we have he’ll be wiser. So stupid to waste an hour of valuable time in that way. But, after all, it’s a golden rule to expect a beginner to fight a hopeless case. One ought to have known.”

“Quite sure it is hopeless, Weekes?” said his junior quietly.

“Why ask the question?” said Mr. Weekes, irritably. “The case is as dead as this mutton.”

“Then I am afraid there is a little life in,” said Mr. Topott, tasting the mutton ominously. “Waiter, if you don’t mind, I’ll try the beef.”

“That confounded cross-examination—so stupid—so unnecessary—put everybody out,” said Mr. Weekes, snappishly, at each mouthful. “Waste of public time—may well want more judges—ought to allow judges more power—better for everybody—save time and money—save youngsters from making fools of themselves.”

“Also enable us to get in an extra round of golf on a Saturday,” said Mr. Topott, viewing the beef he had exchanged for the mutton with a deep suspicion. “But seriously, Weekes,” said he, “I don’t want you to leave me until they’ve returned their verdict. You can just let that nisi prius business alone this afternoon, and stay with me. I have a presentiment that things might go wrong.”

“Presentiment!” said Mr. Weekes impatiently. “Deuce take your presentiments! Waiter, bring me some red pepper.”

“The fact is, I am frightened to death by that young fellow,” said Mr. Topott cheerfully. “I suppose you know who he is?”

“I know what he is,” said Mr. Weekes incisively. “He is a confounded nuisance.”

“He is the greatest player of Rugby football the game ever saw,” said Mr. Topott impressively.

“Pity he didn’t stick to it,” said Mr. Weekes. “Better for him, better for us. But what has his football got to do with his advocacy?”

“Well, I always think, you know,” said Mr. Topott modestly, “a man is all of a piece as you might say. If he is preëminent in one thing he will be preëminent in another.”

“Not at all, my dear fellow,” said Mr. Weekes, breathing contradiction, a pastime that was dear to him. “It doesn’t follow in the least. A man may be supreme as a crossing-sweeper, but it does not follow that he would be equally great as a member of Parliament.”

“I am only advancing a theory,” said Mr. Topott, more modestly than ever, “but I rather contend that it does. It is a matter of will-power. That to which his supremacy is due in one direction, if evoked in an equal degree in another direction will result in an equal supremacy. What I mean to say is, that it seems to me this truly great football-player has made up his mind to become a truly great advocate. And that is why I fear him.”

“Moonshine,” said Mr. Weekes. “He is clever, I grant you; but football-playing and advocacy are not on all fours, as he will discover this afternoon very speedily when he comes to address a British jury.”

“If you don’t mind my saying so,” said Mr. Topott, with a very apologetic air, “it struck me this morning that his football-playing and his advocacy were very much on all fours. They both struck me as belonging unmistakably to the man. I have, as I say, a presentiment that things might go wrong.”

“Confound your presentiments, Topott! How can things go wrong? And why a man of your experience should funk a mere boy who has had none, I don’t know. He is certain to come an imperial crowner with the jury. There isn’t half a leg for him to stand on.”

“Well, he didn’t come much of a crowner this morning,” said Mr. Topott deferentially, “in spite of Bow-wow and in spite of you. I don’t know where he obtained his information, but I thought the whole thing was most artistic. And if the fellow can cross-examine in that manner, heaven knows what he can do when he gets up on his hind legs to address the jury. I tell you, Weekes, I am frightened to death of this young fellow. He’s deep.”

“I tell you what it is, my boy,” said Mr. Weekes tartly, “you stayed up an hour longer than you ought to have done at the Betterton last night, waiting for four aces which never turned up.”

At an adjoining table the barrister of elephantine proportions, who had expressed his determination “to stand the fellow a bottle,” was entertaining a select coterie of his learned friends. In his inn he was justly celebrated as a trencherman among a society which had always been famous for its prowess at the board. He rejoiced in the name of “Jumbo;” and, although his practice was small, only his adipose tissue imposed the bounds to his good nature. In every way he was designed by nature to be one of her most popular efforts.

“Who’s Northcote?” was a question that was circulating freely. None seemed to know.

“Never heard of him. Never seen his name.”

“Well known in the police-courts, I believe.”

“It’s time he gave them up. His talents call him elsewhere.”

“It was rather poor form, I must say, trying to score off Bow-wow.”

“It is a mistake a young man is likely to make.”

“Speaking for myself, I thought Bow-wow was asking for it. It is the time-honored story of the old-established firm of the bench and the Treasury. Once a Treasury counsel always a Treasury counsel.”

“Jealousy, jealousy, jealousy.”

“He was altogether wrong with the police.”

“I agree. He ought to have been handled more firmly.”

“Bow-wow furnishes a good example of a lath painted to look like iron. I should like to have seen him face to face with Cunningham, or old Tottie Turnbull. There would have been trouble for one.”

“For m’lud, I’ll lay a pony. This young sportsman is quite above the ordinary. He is going a very long way.”

“It is too early to say. We see so many geese with the plumage of the swan in this profession.”

“Name! name!” cried the table.

“I expect when it is all reckoned up,” said Jumbo, when order had been restored, “my young pal, Jem Smith, is the son of ‘Pot’ Northcote who went the northern circuit for years.”

“If that is so, Jum, he is already a better man than his father. Pot died a recorder.”

“I hope the young un will open his mug for an hour this afternoon. He’s got the finest mask on him for a young un I ever saw.”

“Weekes might easily have to play jack-in-the-box all the afternoon.”

“In that case poor old Bow-wow will have to do a frightful amount of scratching at his leg.”

“But the case is too dead to be worth it.”

“That won’t matter to James. He threw down his gage this morning. The jury will have to sit tight and hold on to the handle going round the curves, or he’ll have them in a hat before he’s done with them. And I’ve seen Bow-wow crumple up before now.”

“So have we all.”

“Like all notorious barkers his voice is the best part about him.”

“For my part, I think you are going too fast. The lad is not so wonderful as all this. He has done nothing out of the common as far as I can see.”

“No, dear boy,” said Jumbo, “because you can never see anything. But a young sportsman who can cross-examine in that manner in his first murder case is made of the right stuff.”

“But the witness was as easy as pie. She didn’t know where she was or what she was saying.”

“And he took an amazing advantage of her.”

“So would any one else.”

“They would, but in a very different way.”

“His cross-examination will amount to nothing, in spite of the time it wasted.”

“Will it not, though? That is all you know of a sentimental jury of your countrymen.”

“His attack on the police was monstrous, and he had no right to put questions in the form he did.”

“So thought Weekes, so thought Bow-wow, but he put them all the same. And what is more, the foreman of the jury, a highly respectable greengrocer, took cognizance.”

“Well, where does his amazingness come in? She only answered ‘yes’ to everything.”

“Had he wanted her to answer ‘no’ to everything she would have done so.”

“Of course she would. Everybody could see that.”

“Yes, dear boy, and what does he do? Our young friend takes the liberty of inventing every one of his facts as he goes along. All that about her dealings with the police and the murdered man coming from her native village was so much fiction. It was a marvellous piece of improvisation.”

“We shall none of us believe that.”

“Of course you won’t, dear boys; you are not expected to. But as soon as he realized his opportunity he took an amazing advantage of it. It was daring, I grant you, an unparalleled piece of effrontery. I don’t know another man at the bar who, had he been capable of a coup of that kind, would have ventured to play it. The whole thing was the most audacious piece of work ever seen.”

“But, my dear Jum, he had no right to do a thing of that kind.”

“Of course not, dear boy, but he did it.”

“But why didn’t Weekes stop him?”

“Because Weekes did not know any more than you. He would be the last man in the world to see a thing of that kind.”

“Then why didn’t Topott call his attention to it?”

“Topott also was completely taken in.”

“Then by your own showing, Jum, you were the cleverest man in court this morning?”

“The cleverest but one, dear old boy. My young friend Jem Smith was the cleverest by very long chalks, but my perspicacity is deserving of honorable mention.”

“It is not the first time,” said the table, roaring with laughter, “that this fatal drink habit has caused you to see things.”