The Strand Magazine/Volume 2/Issue 9/TQS
The Queer Side of Things
I.—Judicial Innocence.
HE attainment, by dint of superior intellectual abilities, of any high position naturally implies some individuality of character—some departure from the stereotyped mental constitution of the crowd.
In a judge, for instance, we confidently expect this departure, and we get it, in one characteristic at any rate, to a remarkable extent; and it is this judicial trait which we now propose to consider—one little slice or fragment of judge. We would not presume to deal with an entire judge in so slight an article as this; for—never having acted as valet to one—we think of a judge with something beyond reverence.
Innocence.
The judicial trait we have to consider is Progressive Innocence. In the ordinary human being the birthright of innocence is rapidly squandered, and a person usually "knows too much" at the age of fifteen or so; he starts innocent and finishes knowing. But it seems to be quite otherwise with your judge; we have never known a judge as an infant, and so cannot say whether he is born innocent. The earliest reliable information about any given judge dates from his Eton or University days, and in his University days, at any rate, extreme innocence does not appear to be his chief characteristic.
"What is the ace of spades?"
But let us change the slide to a picture of his lordship seated upon his familiar and comfortable bench, and we see him clothed in innocence as with a garment, and muffled up to the eyes in overwhelming ingenuousness!
He who has read the law-court reports in the papers will have paused in amazement at the simplicity of the questions put by his lordship to witnesses, to counsel, to the usher, to anyone who will take pity on his infantine unworldliness.
The subject of cards will occur in the course of the evidence; the ace of spades will be alluded to; his lordship will look up mildly, blandly, almost timidly from his notes, and will lisp:
"What is the ace of spades?
"It is a card, m' lord," says Bulliwrag, Q.C.
"A card?" prattles his lordship, in his pretty little taking way; "a card is a thing people play with, is it not?" and appears to be looking about for his rattle.
"Yes, m' lord," says the witness.
"Is it the same as a visiting card—and a race card?" says his lordship.
"No, m' lord, not quite the same," says Badgeremm, O.C., in a soothing tone, apparently designed to get baby to sleep before he can ask any more questions, and my lord bends over his notes and writes down all his new information about cards, and gazes at it in delight.
We cannot more clearly trace this remarkable evolution of innocence than by giving
Some Account of the Career of Lord Justice Toddles, of Her Majesty's High Courts.
(Compiled from the newspapers, and illustrated by extracts from his Lordship's diary.)
After figuring as one of the chief ornaments of Eton, young Timothy Toddles—destined to be afterwards so well known to fame—entered upon his career at the University, where his unremitting application and keen relish of learning, combined with a brilliant capacity and limitless power of assimilation, rapidly won the admiration and respect of his instructors, &c., &c.
(Extract from his diary at that period.)
"Feel just a few chippy this morning. Haven't been to roost since last Thursday. Dashwood and the other johnnies would stick at baccarat till breakfast every evening. Got fairly cleared out this journey; and worst of it is, old Moss won't part another fiver, and Flickers dunning me to bail up over the Leger transaction. Blued every maravedi, and the ancestor not to be tapped again till the 15th, and then only for a century!
"Sam Grobbs turned up with the rats. My terrier, Bob, had a little match on for a tenner with Dashwood's Nipper, and eased him of it with fifty-five seconds to the good. . . Saw some sweet little play between Yarmouth Bloater and Bob Ribroaster, of the Three Stars. Bob led off grandly about the region of the Bloater's headlights, and dusk supervened after a few layers of it; though the Yarmouth Practitioner did negotiate a little business connected with Bob's nibblers, some of which retired within and got digested. . . ."
An awakened conscience.
Any person of insight, reading the above extract, will be irresistibly drawn to the conclusion that the study of letters did not so monopolise Mr. Toddles as to utterly banish some slight knowledge of the pursuits and customs of the life around him. At that time, indeed, indications point to the idea that he knew a thing or two—that he probably knew, at least by hearsay, the nature of the ace of spades.
But a few years later we find a marked change in him—the Evolution of Innocence has set in. A sudden call to the Bar has caused his moral sense to awaken, with a cry of horror, to the enormity of his previous knowledge of a thing or two: he feels, with an absolute pang, how great a danger any knowledge of the flippant life of the age must always be to the pure soul of a pleader in the courts; and we feel his thrill of horror and aversion when confronted with a witness possessed of such knowledge. Here is an extract from the case.
The Learned Counsel (with emotion): "Cards? Do you deliberately and unblushingly stand here and tell this court that you are in the habit of playing cards?"
Witness: "I do occasionally take a hand."
"Gentlemen, I ask you to look at this witness."
The L.C. (wiping his brow): "In point of fact, you deliberately admit—almost boast—that you are a card sharper? Gentlemen, you will hardly forget that! And the card you had in your hand was the ace of spades? Exactly! Now, gentlemen, I ask you to look at this witness—to try to realise that this man—this fellow creature (for he is still a fellow creature)—is capable, beneath his sleek and respectable exterior, of combining those base and degraded instincts—those revolting and deplorable inclinations which can so stifle a man's purer and loftier nature as to allow him, unblushing and unrepentant, to hold in his hand not only a card—not only a court-card—but an ace, and that ace the ace of spades! Gentlemen, we have heard of these things, but until this terrible moment, when this man stands before us in all his vileness, we have not realised them; we have not grasped the fact that they exist; that they are—how shall I utter the word?—used!!!" (The learned counsel was at this point so overcome by emotion that he begged leave to sit down for a moment.)
"Overcome by emotion."
Such further light as may be needed is thrown upon this period of our Toddler's career by a few words from his diary of that date:—
"Wiped Horsewig's eye nicely over the card case, and knocked his witnesses into a cocked hat. Got our costs, too, which I hardly expected the old boy would give us. Dined with Horsewig in the evening, and cleared him out afterwards at poker."
***
"The evolution of innocence."
More years pass, and the counsel (having become a Q.C.) is called to the bench; and the Evolution of Innocence is complete. The keenest eye would fail to recognise in that chubby and cherubic judge, seated in his lofty chair, and apparently pining for his feeding-bottle, the University student who knew a thing or two!
He is not filled with horror and aversion now at the mention of contaminating things; bland innocence fills the air around him, and he is unconscious of the existence of good and evil. His toys are laid out on the little desk in front of him—his pen, his ink, and his paper. Near him sits his nurse, the clerk; and all around are counsel, witnesses, jurymen, in attendance there solely to answer the artless questions which fall from his little rosy lips. It is an infant school—an idyll: it is sweetly pretty.
"The clerk hoists up his lordship."
"And what do people do with cards?" asks his lordship.
"They play with them, ducky," replies Bulliwrag, Q.C.
"Play with them?" repeats his lordship, beginning to get restless, and rubbing his eyes ominously. "I want to get down and play. Isn't it lunch time?"
And the clerk hastily gets up, and hoists up his lordship just as he is slipping out of his chair, and pats him soothingly; but he won't sit up and listen any more, and he won't understand what a card is, and he pouts until the barristers stop their ears in anxious anticipation; and the usher takes up his lordship, and dances him up and down, and hurries him away to his private room and his bottle of dry sherry.
Can we have dreamed that we once encountered in a railway carriage an elderly gentleman of overwhelmingly innocent mien? There he seemed to sit, sucking his umbrella handle, and, as we entered the compartment, he gazed at us with round eyes full of innocent delight, and crowed.
"Fine day for the Ascot Cup," we remarked; and he took the handle from his mouth—leaving a little dewy drip on his chubby chin—and said, "Astot tup?"
Innocent delight.
We explained, in language as simple as possible, the nature of the Ascot Cup contest; but his round blue eyes were full of puzzled wonder, and he loudly crowed again. Then we tried the Labour Commission, the short service system, and the bearings of the Jackson case on the future relations of husband and wife. Here he crowed loudly, rammed both his thumbs into his mouth, and said: "Baby tinks yat 'ee decision in that case was as intrinsically bad in law as it was distinctly and perniciously opposed to those legal traditions which, though finding their basis in no legislative enactment, should, as nurturing the very root of all true social well-being, and forming, as they unquestionably do, the substructure of that order to which society owes its very essence and being—ahem!"
He stopped abruptly in confusion; but instantly perceiving that he had gone too far for further dissimulation to be of any avail, he slowly closed one eye with an excruciating wink, and jerked his thumb three times over his left shoulder.
"Innocent, my dear sir?" he said. "We judges innocent? All put on, sir—a mere trick of the trade. Merely done for effect, sir, as a foil to emphasise and contrast the depth of our erudition, and the grasp and subtlety of our reasoning when we come to the summing up. See?—ahem!"
A stranger entered the compartment, and his lordship replaced his umbrella handle and crowed violently.
II.—A VARIATION ON TWO SUITS.
The joys of cycling.—I.
Enthusiastic Photographer: "Just a moment like that, please!"
The joys of cycling.—II.
Landlady: "Towel not clean! Why, twenty gents have used that towel, and never said a word!"
Singing master: "Open your mouth like this. Now!"
Pupil (after a tremendous effort): "There! What's that good for?"
Singing master: "An auctioneer."
Cabby: "Half-a-crown too much! Well, as you're a furriner, say two-and-six."
Intelligent foreigner: "Good! It is not bossible to sheet me!"
Professor: "Now, in order to get a correct idea of this hideous animal, I must request you to fix your eyes attentively on me."