‘Look at this cutlet! It’s burnt to a cinder. Take it away. And tell your cook, with my compliments, that it’s always better to have a thing underdone than overdone, because if it’s not cooked enough you can always do it more, but if it’s cooked too much you can’t do it less. D’you hear?’
The waiter bowed low and retired, deeply impressed with the profound wisdom displayed in these observations.
‘You know, if that man who’s defending her—what’s his name: Tressamer?—thinks he’s going to get her off by attacking Lewis, he makes a mistake. I shall go for him if he tries it on.’
‘Most improper—most improper,’ assented Sir John. ‘I don’t know what the Bar’s coming to, I don’t indeed! These young men are throwing over all the old traditions. The judges will really have to do something.’
‘You see, Lewis has acted a perfectly natural and straightforward part. He was bound to do what he did.’
‘What sort of a girl is she? because that will make a good deal of difference with the jury.’
‘I don’t quite agree with you,’ answered Sir Daniel. ‘My experience is that in a case of this kind the jury are sobered by their sense of responsibility too much to be influenced by a thing like that. It’s the outside public afterwards who get up petitions and kick up a row in the press about a pretty woman.’
‘Then she is pretty?’ said the other.
‘You old sinner!’ retorted Sir Daniel playfully. ‘It’s well for the interests of justice that you’re not on the jury. Yes, begad! Wiseman, she’s one of the loveliest creatures I’ve ever tried. Waiter! Where are those tomatoes?’