CHAPTERXIITHAT REMINDS MEFluellen: It is not well done, mark you now, to take the tales out of my mouth, ere it is made and finished.Shakespeare: “King HenryV.”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 doubtfrom 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 thesame 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 werea 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 verykeenly 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 variousmatters 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 chinand 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-boxand 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 theTimes. 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 theTimesI 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. Iwas 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. Thiswas, 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 verysorry. 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 theenterprise 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 heardthe 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 amongthe 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 bookmakernamed 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 businessyou 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 thecasus belliin 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 ofBushire, 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.”
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 HenryV.”
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 doubtfrom 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 thesame 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 werea 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 verykeenly 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 variousmatters 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 chinand 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-boxand 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 theTimes. 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 theTimesI 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. Iwas 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. Thiswas, 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 verysorry. 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 theenterprise 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 heardthe 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 amongthe 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 bookmakernamed 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 businessyou 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 thecasus belliin 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 ofBushire, 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.”