Frivolities Part 6

"'I also,' he says,' am inclined to wish you hadn't.'

"Very hard and stern he was. I didn't like the look of him, nor yet the sound of him. 'Send Perkins to me,' he says. Presently Mr.

Perkins, he comes 'urryin' up.

"'Perkins,' says Mr. Sheepshanks, 'what scoundrel is this you have brought into my 'ouse?'

"'It's only a young man from the country, sir,' says Perkins, 'as I brought with me to 'elp in the cloak-room. I do 'ope he has been doin'

of nothing wrong?'

"And he gives me a glare out of his eye, like as if I had been doin'

anything to him.

"'I don't know if you're a-thinkin',' says this 'ere Mr. Sheepshanks, a-puffin' and a-pantin', as it seemed to me, with rage, 'that I asked my friends to my 'ouse to have their 'ats destroyed; because your young man, as you says is from the country--and I 'opes to goodness as 'ow he'll soon go back to it!--has done for every one of 'em.'

"'I denies it!' I says. 'I tells you again, as I tells you afore, that I've only been a-squas.h.i.+n' of 'em and a-sittin' on 'em to make 'em lie down flat!'

"When I says that, the way Mr. Perkins goes on at me was what I never had expected. He abused me scandalous. He took me by the neck, and he 'ustled me into the 'all. And there was all the people what was at the party a-crowdin' on the stairs. If you'll believe me, before I 'ardly knew what 'ad 'appened, I found myself a-standin'...!'

"Yes, that were the first time ever I acted as a waiter--likewise, it was the very last.

"When I goes round to put the 'orse ready for market, his missus, she meets me at the door. She gives me the money that was due to me, and she says as 'ow she didn't think as 'ow I had better stay for to have a talk with Perkins, because as 'ow he might be violent. So I didn't.

And I've never set eyes on him from that day to this.

"It was some time before I quite understood what it was had made the gents what was at that there party so excited. One day, comin' along a street near the Strand, I sees in a shop window a 'igh 'at what was a-shuttin' of itself up and a-openin' of itself out without, so far as I could see, no one a-doin' nothing to it. Some sort of machinery, I expect as 'ow it was. So I stops and I takes a look at it. There was a boy a-lookin' at it too. So I says to him--

"'What kind of a 'at do you call that?' I says.

"'It's a hopera 'at, ain't it?' he says. 'Who do you think as you're a-gettin' at?'

"I wasn't a-gettin' at no one, and it was like that there boy's impudence to suppose as 'ow I was.

"'Oh! a hopera 'at, is it?' I says. 'You don't 'appen to know if that's the same as a 'igh 'at, do you?'

"'A 'igh 'at!' he says. 'Go on! Ax your grandmother! P'r'aps your mother 'ardly knows you're out! Go and prig the parish pump and pop it with a peeler!'

"And that there boy, he 'ooks it. And it was well for him he did. If I had a-got my 'ands on him he'd have known it. But, from the way in which that 'at was a-goin' on in that there window, and from what that there boy says, I took it that there was two kinds of 'igh 'ats--the hopera kind and the other kind. And, in supposin' that the other kind could be squashed in, like the hopera kind, was just where I had made my error."

Returning a Verdict

It was in the country, at the last Quarter Sessions, a case of theft.

James Bailey, in the employ of Samuel Nichols, a fishmonger, was charged with stealing certain trusses of hay and bushels of corn. The jury had retired to consider their verdict.

"Of course," observed the foreman, who had seated himself at the head of the table, "we've only come out here as a matter of form. There's no doubt that the young scamp did it."

William Baker, leaning towards him, shading his hand with his mouth, whispered, with the evident intention of addressing him in strictest confidence, "I say guilty!"

Some of the jurymen were standing about the room talking to one another audibly on subjects which had not the slightest connection with the case they were supposed to be considering.

"What I want," said Slater, the butcher of Offley, to old George Parkes of Wormald's Farm, "is a calf--a nice one--just about prime."

With his heavy hand old Parkes nursed his stubbly chin.

"Ah!" he reflected. "I haven't got nothing, not just now, I haven't.

Might have in about a month."

Slater shook his head. "Must have it Friday."

"Ah!" Mr. Parkes paused. "I haven't got nothing." Paused again. "I might have, though."

A. B. Timmins, secretary of the local branch of the Primrose League, was calling across the room to Mr. Hisgard, a well-known amateur vocalist, with a view of retaining his services for an approaching "smoker." The foreman looked about him. He raised his voice, rapped on the table.

"Gentlemen, please--business!" Somebody laughed, as if the foreman had been guilty of a joke--so he improved on it. "Business first, pleasure afterwards." The laugher held his peace--the joke fell flat. The jury seated themselves--not with any air of over-anxious haste. The foreman continued--he was one of the most flouris.h.i.+ng auctioneers in that division of the county--and now spoke with that half persuasive, half authoritative manner with which many of them were familiar in the rostrum. "We must remember, gentlemen, that the court is waiting. So, with your permission, we will come to the point at once. Those who are of opinion that the prisoner is guilty will please hold up their hands." Seven hands went up. "Those who are of the contrary opinion."

One hand was raised--Jacob Longsett's. Mr. Grice, the foreman, eyed the three gentlemen who had made no sign on either occasion. He addressed himself to one of them, "Well, Mr. Tyler, which is it to be?"

"The fact is, Mr. Grice," said Mr. Tyler, "that I've had a bad earache--it was the draught which must have given it me. I think I didn't quite catch all that was being said now and again; but I'm willing to say what the other gentlemen do!"

"You mean that you'll vote with the majority?"

"That's just what I do mean, Mr. Grice."

"I ain't going to say nothing," declared George Parkes, who had also refrained from expressing an opinion. "I don't know no good about young Bailey, nor yet about Sam Nichols neither. Sam Nichols, he's owed me nigh on four pound these three years and more."

"I don't think," observed the foreman, "that we ought to allow personal considerations to enter into the case. It's our duty to speak to the evidence, and to that only."

"I don't care nothing about no evidence. The one's as big a thief as t'other."

Old George clenched his toothless jaws and blinked.

"What'll he get if we bring him in guilty?" asked Mr. Plummer, the third abstainer.

The foreman shook his head. "That oughtn't to influence our decision."

Mr. Plummer differed, and said so.

"It'll influence mine. James Bailey is not yet eighteen. To send him to prison will do him more harm than good. If his case is to come under the First Offenders Act, we shall know where we are."

"We might make a recommendation to that effect," suggested Captain Rudd.

"Excuse me," interposed Mr. Moss, "but I doubt if I could agree to our doing that. I'm afraid that Master Bailey deserves some punishment.

This is not the first time he has done this sort of thing. He was dismissed from his last two places for dishonesty."

Again the foreman shook his head.

"That didn't come out in the evidence. You know, gentlemen, what we have to do is to dismiss from our minds any knowledge of the parties which we may have outside the case, and confine our attention to the sworn testimony."