THAT REMINDS ME
FLUELLEN: It is not well done, mark you now, to take the
tales out of my mouth, ere it is made and finished.
SHAKESPEARE: “King Henry V.”
That reminds me that the little Welshman――and what race understands
the rules of courtesy more truly――warns us against the ill manners of
interrupting the story of our companion by our own incomparably
wittier jest, until there has been a fair pause for the courtly
reception of his somewhat antiquated tale, and then, I take it, good
breeding compels us to pretend that out of the ashes of his dusty
reminiscences our own admirable phœnix has sprung, and we begin our
story with “That reminds me,” not as a boast, but out of mere
complaisance. But when one has only oneself to interrupt the course is
smoother. Nor is it at all necessary that there should be any real
sequence in the story-telling to justify the phrase. It is a
well-known convention of the game that you may dash off into a story
having no reference to the past conversation as long as you preface it
with some lip-service to the pleasures of memory. For the
story-telling habit comes down to us, no doubt from the East and the
“Arabian Nights.” Poor Scheherazadé had a special reason for being
reminded of a new story at the right moment, she indeed being the
first lady novelist who literally made her living out of fiction.
Really I cannot but think we should get some brighter and more
entertaining stories from the fair writers of to-day if their novels
were written under a similar stimulus. This habit of irrelevant
story-telling is no new thing――Cervantes caught it from the East,
perhaps, and our own Fielding glories in it as being part of the
method of the Master; for is not the “History of the Man of the Hill”
a corollary to the “Novell of the Curious Impertinent”? Dickens no
doubt inherited the manner directly from Fielding, and in his earlier
style will interrupt unblushingly the humours of an evening at Dingley
Dell to narrate the unnecessary clergyman’s unnecessary narrative of
“The Convict’s Return,” and then, as old Wardle says, “You are fairly
in it!”
And having satisfied my petty legal mind with the precedents in the
case, and convinced myself that irrelevant story-telling is, as the
golfer would say, a fair hazard, I will confess that I should not have
interrupted my narrative with this particular embarrassing and
irrelevant chapter had I not seen an excellent portrait of Partington
the other day. How many remember that sound artist? I last heard of
him from Sir Henry Irving, who had seen him in San Francisco――and this
picture of Partington’s reminded me of George Freemantle, that prince
of musical critics, whose picture by the same artist still hangs in
the Brasenose Club, where he was so greatly beloved, and that reminded
me of Murphy, Q.C., and that reminded me of the Right Honourable
Arthur James Balfour, and not unnaturally that reminded me of “The
Story of the Mysterious Barber,” which, as Sir Francis Burnand’s Mr.
Barlow says――as you have not heard, I will now proceed to relate. And
“The Story of the Mysterious Barber” is in reality the story of the
election petition against Mr. Balfour in 1892.
Now, although this petition was a farce and a fiasco at that, yet I am
far from thinking that, to those who started it, it was as obviously
an ill-advised a proceeding as it quickly appeared to be in court. Of
course, Mr. Balfour himself desired the election to be conducted on
the purest lines, but, then, Mr. Balfour by himself probably could not
have succeeded in winning the election. The man who won the election
was Stephen Chesters Thompson, the uncrowned king of Ardwick, and at
the back of Chesters Thompson was a brewery. In manner and appearance
Chesters Thompson was as genial a ruffian as ever scuttled a ship, but
he had a big heart and an open hand, and was genuinely fond of
throwing largess to his poorer neighbours. I have heard that he would
enter a grocer’s shop on a Saturday night or Monday morning, when the
women were paying up their books, and, snatching the books from their
hands with a “Now, missus, I’ll be settling this for you,” he would
pay up all the books and depart with a jest and a laugh, as though the
affair were a commonplace pleasantry. He and Mr. Balfour were, indeed,
an ill-assorted pair, but politics makes one acquainted with strange
friends, and no one ever saw the least impatience exhibited by Mr.
Balfour towards his adjutant. I never heard Chesters Thompson make a
long oration, but I remember him once at the end of a meeting jumping
up and delivering a panegyric on Mr. Balfour. At the close of its
tawdry, fulsome, and sincere adulation, which Mr. Balfour bore like a
hero, Chesters Thompson wound up by patting him endearingly on the
shoulder with his heavy paw. “I luve Arthur James Balfour,” he said,
swaying heavily about with suppressed emotion, and throwing the whole
weight of his devotion into the second syllable of the word Balfour,
which he always accented thus. “I luve Arthur James Balfour,” he
continued, “and I tell you boys this, that should the day ever coom
that it is necessary, I shall be there to place the body of Stephen
Chesters Thompson between Arthur James Balfour and the dagger of the
arsarsin.” The cheers that rent the stuffy atmosphere of the hired
schoolroom at this magnificent sentiment proved that in Ardwick, at
least, poetry, romance, melodrama――call it what you will――was a living
force, and that Chesters Thompson was its high priest.
With such a general and many lieutenants who modelled themselves on
their leader, it is not to be wondered at that stories came round
bearing the interpretation of ill-doing. The election was a very
keenly contested one. Professor Munro, who fought for the Liberals,
put up an excellent fight, and was only beaten by 398 votes. In August
it was announced that a petition had been lodged by the defeated
candidate. Nothing personal was alleged against Mr. Balfour, but there
were allegations of illegal practices, bribery, treating, and general
corruption.
What was done between August and November to collect the necessary
evidence I have no idea, but when the briefs were delivered it was
very clear that it would be a difficult task to prove any of the
allegations that had been made. It was on November 4 that the case
came on before Justices Cave and Vaughan Williams. Murphy, Q.C., Lewis
Coward, and myself were for the petitioner, and Finlay, Q.C.,
Danckwerts, the Hon. A. Lyttelton, and Lord Robert Cecil for Mr.
Balfour. Murphy, who was far from well, addressed the Bench sitting
down. We really had no case to open, and those who had been employed
by Professor Munro to collect facts had, I fear, been carried away by
their enthusiasm and belief in the general iniquity of their
opponents, and had mistaken rumour and hearsay for evidence. It was a
lamentable position for counsel to be in, but Murphy――if one can
predicate such movements about so genial a man-mountain as
Murphy――skilfully danced among a labyrinth of eggs with as much
certainty and decision as if he were upon a clear stage.
He spent quite a long time over the various matters about which he
might or might not satisfy the Court, and then he paused and said
there was one specific case of bribery which, if the witness was
believed by the Court, would invalidate the election. The name of the
witness was John Francis Green. Murphy himself had never believed in
the fellow, but he agreed that if when we saw John Francis Green he
turned out to be a witness of truth, then the petition was well
founded.
The mystery of John Francis Green is like the problem of the “dark
lady” in the Sonnets. Some will believe one thing about it and some
another. The Court refused to believe him at all, and it may be that
he was merely a romancer and a liar. On the other hand, his story may
have been partly built up from facts relating not necessarily to this
election, but to some municipal or other contest. Certainly it was an
extraordinary story for a man to invent at the risk of being found
guilty of perjury, and with the necessity of giving up his business in
Ardwick. True, he was to receive £200, but only if he gave truthful
evidence, a not unreasonable arrangement, as Ardwick would not have
held him if the result of his evidence had been to invalidate the
election.
The first day’s evidence was devoted to one case after another that
more or less broke down and could not be proved. Then we received news
that John Francis Green had disappeared. He had been ill for some
days, and we adjourned without knowing whether he would turn up or
not. The next day he did turn up, a miserable figure muffled up to the
chin and looking wretchedly ill. Some said his illness was mere funk
at having to tell his false story in the witness-box, but there was
even then opportunity to go back and speak the truth. However, he told
his story on oath exactly as he had given it to Professor Munro’s
supporters.
He was a barber in Ardwick, and had many times shaved Mr. Chesters
Thompson. He said that one of Mr. Balfour’s supporters often came to
his shop and talked to him, and on one occasion gave him £15 and a
letter of instructions, and later on a man he did not know, but who
said he was an election agent, had given him £7. This money Green was
to hand over to people who presented him tickets, and these tickets he
described in great detail. There were several names on them, and some
had sealing-wax and a ribbon attached to them. After the election some
of the tickets and incriminating letters which remained with him were,
according to Green’s statement, kept by him in a box, and towards the
end of October his house was broken into and the box stolen. That in
itself was enough to make one disbelieve his story, but when it was
found that he could not identify any one of Mr. Balfour’s supporters
as the election agent, it was clear that in the absence of
corroboration his evidence must be dismissed as useless.
Mr. Murphy now took the only course open to him, and said he could not
usefully continue the petition. Mr. Maltby, Mr. Balfour’s agent, Mr.
Chesters Thompson, and others went into the witness-box and formally
denied all knowledge of Green and his extraordinary story. The Court
adjourned until the afternoon to deliver judgment, and I took Murphy
up to the Brasenose Club.
It was about noon, the club was empty, and Murphy reclined on a sofa,
and disappeared behind the _Times_. Very soon the paper boys began to
yell out “Kerlapse of the Pertition!” “Kerlapse of the Pertition!” I
knew I should have to stand much chaff and friendly abuse over the
petition, as in all clubs where there are no politics eighty per cent.
of the members were Tory, and it is only the remainder who must not
indulge in political discussion. And sure enough, in rushed
Freemantle, the musical critic, waving a paper and calling out to me,
“Here’s nice work! Here’s a disgraceful affair to be connected with!
Apart from politics altogether, did you ever read of such a wicked and
abominable conspiracy to destroy a political opponent? Of course, I
know you have had nothing to do with it, but I should just like to be
face to face with the ruffian who put this wretched case forward!”
“You shall,” I said, and pulling down the _Times_ I disclosed my
learned leader and introduced him to Freemantle. “Mr. Murphy――Mr.
Freemantle.” As I strolled away I felt Murphy was shaking with gentle
laughter to a running accompaniment of Freemantle’s explanations and
apologies.
We went back to the Court, and our case was dismissed with ignominy
and costs. Freemantle, indeed, had not said a word too much about it.
I was very sorry for Professor Munro, for he was a sincere and keen
worker for the Liberal party, and those who advised with him in the
early stages of the petition had grievously misled him; no one
supposes the election was conducted without errors, but things on the
other side were not as black as the Liberals imagined.
Certainly no word was ever spoken or thought by the most ardent
Radical against Mr. Balfour, the nominal defendant. His popularity in
Manchester remained and still remains undiminished. No one in the
political world was better loved than Mr. Balfour by all sorts and
conditions of Manchester men. Even to the very last those who had
always voted against him voted with regret, for they felt they were
parting with the first gentleman in English politics. As an Ardwick
man said in defence of himself and some of his friends, “Nay, mon,
it’s not Arthur James Balfour we’re tired of――it’s his politics.”
And that reminds me――not directly, I agree, but I will not waste
another page in tracing out the connection――that reminds me of the
story of “The Good Man and the Manilla Bills.” A certain principal
brought an action against a firm of very respected merchants. The
merchants had acted in large concerns as his agents. They had shipped
goods for him for many years to foreign parts and had had complicated
financial dealings with him. He now asserted that for years the
merchants had been defrauding him, and asked for all the accounts to
be opened between them and taken afresh. This was, of course, a very
serious charge indeed, and when the case came before the Chancery
Court the sole representative of the firm of merchants was the Good
Man, who I am happy to relate is still with us.
It is not for a common law man like myself to criticise the ways of a
Palatine Chancery Court. Astbury was my leader, and I was only one of
the team of three who defended the Good Man. Why I was there I never
rightly understood, but I think I was there to sympathise with the
Good Man in his trouble while Astbury and his eminent solicitor, the
cashier and an eminent and chartered accountant played hide and seek
among the ledgers. Technically, perhaps, I was taken into the case to
cross-examine, but I don’t remember doing it. These Chancery fellows
love doing it, and as the men on the other side were Chancery men, and
as no one knew anything about the law of evidence――least of all the
Court――what did it matter? The case lasted forty odd days. That was to
the credit of Chancery procedure. The leaders arranged each day how
far they should go, and the Court was only too glad to rise when told
that “this” was a convenient moment, as they were now coming to the
Manilla bills. And that reminds me that it is time I came to the
Manilla bills. They were a nightmare to Astbury, the eminent
solicitor, the cashier and the eminent and chartered accountant. I do
not know that they affected my sleep, but I gathered they were the
weak point in our case and were probably going to ruin the Good Man,
and that made me very sorry. For the worry about the Manilla bills was
that in some mysterious monetary manner, in passing through banks and
ledgers and other financial filters, it had so panned out that a
quarter――or was it an eighth?――per cent. that belonged undoubtedly to
the plaintiff, remained in the coffers of the Good Man. It was the
most complicated affair, but there it was. The fact must be found
against us, and then as the Good Man was an agent dealing with the
monies of his principal, would not the Court take the view that this
was fraud, and order the whole account to be re-opened? The more we
talked over this the more exasperating it became. The cashier, who had
found the system in the office when he came there, was rather proud of
it, and blankly refused to believe there was anything wrong about it.
The Good Man smilingly gave us sixteen different explanations of the
matter, which Astbury rejected with a scorn that caused the eminent
solicitor to grow visibly older. Astbury insisted in his clear logical
way on a clear logical defence of our treatment of the Manilla bills.
The difficulty was there wasn’t one. Even if we could have invented a
theoretical one the Good Man would have given it away honestly and
simply the first time he was asked. So there we were with the Manilla
bills ahead of us and within a day or two of the time when we had to
put our Good Man in the box to explain his dealings with them.
“Well!” said Astbury in despair, “I shall have to lead him through the
best explanation we have got.”
“In the Palatine Court that is always possible,” I answered; “but
isn’t it fatal?”
Astbury groaned.
“Why not let him give all the sixteen explanations?” I suggested
carelessly. “He would love to do it.”
Astbury and the eminent solicitor looked annoyed at my flippancy.
However, as it turned out, Providence had a task for me in that case
after all, for the Good Man came to me and told me that he was so
frightened of Astbury that he would really like me to examine him.
“I never seem to say what they want me to,” he said, naïvely.
And in the end, it being clear that no form of examination of the
witness could make the Manilla bill business any better or worse, the
Good Man had his own way, and he and I collaborated in the matter. We
had a rehearsal. It went like this. I asked the Good Man, “What about
the Manilla bills; tell me all about them?”
The Good Man started off――I remember I smoked two cigars of say five
and seven-eighths during his answer. It was then, I think, that he
added the seventeenth explanation, less convincing than the others. I
timed him. He was a rapid speaker, and then I worked it out in
folios――I felt sure the drama of it was right, and I determined we
would play it out in our own simple way. I fancy the saner spirits
among us washed their hands of the enterprise altogether, but even in
a Chancery Court a good comedy well played is irresistible. And the
Good Man was really an excellent witness. My part was not a speaking
one. I merely slipped him from the leash, so to speak, and away he
went.
I remember the indignant tones in which he swept aside the suggestion
of fraud and started out to victory. The shorthand writers toiled
after him, panting and breathless. It was like a fine course at
Altcar, run with vigour and mettle. At the end of the first
explanation he paused, though only for a second, and I could see our
opponents pitying us――but he was off again, heading to the opposite
bank, and the reporters after him with dismay in their faces――and our
opponents were laughing at his contradictions. But not for long. One
after another came the various possible explanations, always prefaced
by a kindly smiling desire to say all he knew and keep nothing back
that could be told. At one moment the Vice-Chancellor asked him to
repeat one of the theories of the finance of the matter. He did so.
The Vice-Chancellor said he really could not understand it, so the
Good Man repeated it again, and three pages were added to the
shorthand note. I reckoned before we had finished that the Good
Man had spoken about forty pages of shorthand notes, and in
cross-examination the other side added another twenty, and an
eighteenth new explanation of the Manilla bills, which may perhaps
have been only a variant of the eleventh. But the case was won. The
Vice-Chancellor had heard the Good Man speak the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth, and knew that he was honest. It was
a triumph of drama over law, and it was the Good Man’s own victory.
At the hearing in the Court of Appeal, the shorthand note was read and
commented upon for several days, and the Manilla bills reduced the
Court to a state of bewildered amazement. They knew the rights and
wrongs of the subject, for those were elementary, but they could not
understand the Good Man’s evidence. Like the average manager who reads
a play in manuscript, they could not appreciate the drama of it. And
then A. L. Smith――so like him――said “Let’s have a look at him.” And he
gave a second show of the Manilla bills in the Court of Appeal. I was
a judge then, but when I heard they had sent for the Good Man to give
evidence I knew all was well. For as soon as he came into the presence
of the Master of the Rolls the case was over. If there was one man on
the bench who knew an honest man when he saw him it was A. L.
And that reminds me――quite naturally, for A. L. was a sportsman――and
it was a story of the moors he told me that reminded me of this story
which I once told him――that reminds me of the story of “The Solicitor
and the Ambiguous Grouse.” It is really Louis Aitken’s story. Would
that he were with us to claim it; but it enables me as a humble
story-teller to take off my hat to him and his story as I hand it on
to others.
We had gone up to a remote County Court among the Yorkshire moors to
thrash out a small building dispute. The solicitor who instructed me
was an old friend of Aitken, and they had often shot together here and
elsewhere. During the conduct of the case it became necessary for me
to prove a certain document the writer of which was not present.
“I have no doubt my friend will admit this,” I said.
“Not a bit of it,” said Aitken, looking very firm. “I shall want it
proved strictly.”
I leaned over to talk to my solicitor about the impasse, when Aitken
continued in a bullying tone, “There is no difficulty in proving the
document. Your solicitor can prove it, you know,” and then with great
emphasis, “if he dares to go into the box――if he dares to go into the
box!”
“Really, Mr. Aitken,” said the judge deprecatingly.
“I have my reasons, your Honour――I have my reasons,” replied Aitken,
shaking his head solemnly.
By this time the solicitor was in the box and had taken the oath and
shortly proved the document, and Aitken arose with a great show of
serious emotion to cross-examine the witness.
“Do you remember the 24th of August, 1889?” he asked.
“I do,” replied the witness with a faint smile.
“This is no joking matter, sir. Attend to me. I think you and I were
shooting on your moor on that day.”
“We were.”
“What on earth has this got to do with the case, Mr. Aitken?” asked
the learned judge, putting down his pen.
“Your Honour will see in a moment that it is most material,” replied
Aitken unabashed. “Now, sir, remember you are on your oath, and answer
me this question without prevarication. Whose bird was it?”
“Well, really――――” began the solicitor.
“Whose bird was it, sir?” shouted Aitken.
“Well, I believe it was yours, Mr. Aitken.”
“Ha!” cried Aitken, triumphantly, and, bowing to the learned judge,
who was shaking with laughter, he added, with impressive humility, “I
trust that, looking to the satisfactory nature of the witness’s
admission, your Honour will not think I was wasting the time of the
Court in insisting on the strict proof of the document.”
And I suppose it is Louis Aitken who reminds me of the Northern
Circuit, and I never think of the circuit without remembering one of
the best friends of all of us, still happily of our number, McCall,
K.C.――and he reminds me of the eminent butcher. There may be some who
have not heard the story of “The Irishman and the Dishonest Backer.”
It is worth relating, I think, as an example of the strange attitude
of mind existing in the unrighteous about the administration of the
law.
There was a well-known butcher in our neighbourhood, a great
character, and a regular frequenter of race meetings. He had had a
wager with a bookmaker named Kelly, and the horse winning had drawn
£200 from the bookmaker. Kelly had reminded him at the time that the
bet was not a ready-money bet, but the butcher said he wanted the
money, and, the two being friends, had got it. An objection was
afterwards lodged and the winner was disqualified. Then Kelly wanted
his money back. The butcher declared the bet was “first past the
post,” which it certainly was not, and Kelly brought his action. The
case was brought to me to settle the defence. Of course, to plead the
Gaming Act was to win the case, and that was done. At the assizes
McCall was briefed to lead me, and the butcher came to a consultation
and tried to persuade McCall to put him in the witness-box and let him
tell his story about the bet. McCall, with his best and most rasping
north of Ireland accent, told his client in so many words what he
thought of him and his story, and sent him away to reflect on some
serious home truths. I met the butcher disconsolate in the corridor
waiting for his case to come on. He stopped me, and, pulling an
imaginary forelock in his simple bucolic way, said in a melancholy
voice, “Mr. Porry, I thowt as ’ow you ’ad this ’ere case o’ mine in
’and.”
“So I have,” I said.
“Well, wot do we want wi’ this ’ere Macoll or Macaul or whatever yer
call ’im. Wot’s ’e for?”
I explained that in important cases the idea was to have a leader,
just as in the butchering business you had a foreman. The butcher
sniffed uneasily through my explanation.
“Well, Mr. Porry,” he said at the end of it, “would yer mind telling
me one thing?”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Is this ’ere Macoll or Macaul an Irishman?”
“Yes, I should say he is,” I replied.
“Aye, I thowt as much,” he said, shaking his head despairingly. “And
you mark my words, Mr. Porry, it will be a ―――― cross between them
two. Thet Kelly, the plaintiff, ’e’s an Irishman, too.”
I chuckled and did not deny the possibility. It was amusing to watch
my client listen to McCall, and note his intense relief when he found
that the Gaming Act really worked as he had been told it would, even
in the hands of an Irishman.
And talking of Irishmen reminds me of the story of “The Arabian and
the Merchant,” which from its remoteness from the every-day affairs of
the circuit is almost as one of Scheherazadé’s own delightful tales. I
can fancy Schariar would have ordered just such a machine himself as
was the _casus belli_ in this case. For the dispute was over a piece
of machinery which a firm of Manchester merchants had sold to a
potentate called the Malektjar of Bushire. The machine was ordered to
be made to grind corn, bottle soda-water, and make ices, and when it
left this country the evidence was that it could do all these things.
In Persia it was carried in pieces up country with an engineer, who
put it together and set it in motion. The local holy men of Bushire,
honestly believing that the machine was some kind of Nonconformist
demon, and a danger to the national religion, roused up the populace
to pelt it with sand and murder its acolyte, the engineer. The latter
escaped with his life, but the machine came to a standstill.
The Arabian who had introduced the business to the merchants now
quarrelled with them over the incidence of the loss. The case was full
of detail, and drifted slowly along to a settlement. During its
progress some eminent Persians visited the Mayor of Manchester, and we
got an order to examine them on commission about the machine which, it
was alleged, they had seen. This took place before the Registrar of
the High Court. Two gorgeous Easterns with a suite of attendants and
an interpreter duly arrived, and it took fully an hour to get them
sworn. The potentates desired to kiss the tail of a sacred cow. The
Registrar held that it was not his business to keep one in the King
Street office, and counsel indulged in a learned argument as to whose
duty it was. Ultimately the witnesses saluted a Reference Library
translation of the Koran, and with doubt and hesitation and not
without prejudice gave evidence through the interpreter. The evidence
of the first was, “I have never seen the machine. I have heard it is a
false god. They light fires before it, and it waves its arms.”
Further testimony was successfully objected to as hearsay. The second
was more knowledgeable. “I have seen the machine. It is no god at all.
True it is they light fires before it, but it does not wave its arms,
it lies still.” On cross-examination the witness said he had seen the
machine many times, and “it grew red with years.” A long examination
failed to elicit from the interpreter whether this was rust, and after
much courtesy and salaams the witnesses left, hugely pleased with
themselves and their adventure. Soon afterwards briefs were delivered
and the assizes came along, and peace was made between the Arabian and
the merchant with honour, and, if I remember rightly, each party paid
their own costs and lived happily ever afterwards. And, talking of
briefs, that reminds me of the story of “The Welsh Rector and the
Presbyterian Poacher”――but I forgot. I told you that one in
“Judgment’s in Vacation.”