'Eh? Yes, to be sure—'
'Number of cases, drunk and disorderly: arising—as I understand—out of Regatta held yesterday at Kirris-vean.'
The Superintendent arose. He is an amazingly tall man, and it seemed to me that he took an amazingly long time in arising to his full height.
'Impossible to accommodate them all in the cells, y'r Worship. If I may say so, the police were hard worked all night. Mercifully'—the Superintendent laid stress on the word, and I shall always, when I think of it, remember to thank him—'the most of 'em were blind. We laid 'em out on the floor of the charge-room, and with scarcely an exception, as I am credibly informed, they've come to, more or less.'
'Kirris-vean?' I saw Sir Felix's hands grip the arms of his chair. Then he put them out and fumbled with his papers. Lord Rattley obligingly pushed forward his copy of the list.
'Shall I have the defendants brought into Court at once?' asked the Superintendent. 'The constables tell me that they are—er—mostly, by this time, in a condition to understand, for all practical purposes, the meaning of an oath.'
Sir Felix has—as I have hinted—his foibles. But he is an English gentleman and a man of courage. He gasped, waved a hand, and sat up firmly.
He must have needed courage indeed, as the sorry culprits filed into Court: for I verily believe he felt more shame than they, though their appearance might be held to prove this impossible. The police at about eleven o'clock had raided the booth of that respectable landlord, Mr Bates ('Which,' observed the Superintendent, stonily, 'we may 'ave somethink to say to 'im, as it were, by-and-by') and had culled some of them—even as one picks the unresisting primrose, others not without recourse to persuasion. 'Many of 'em,' the Superintendent explained, 'showed a liveliness you wouldn't believe. It was, in a manner of speaking, beyond anythink y'r Worships would expect.' He paused a moment, cleared his throat, and achieved this really fine phrase: 'It was, for their united ages, in a manner of speaking, a knock-out.'
I see them now as they filed into court—yellow in the gills, shaking between present fear and the ebb of excess. But I see Sir Felix also, a trifle red in the face, gripping the arms of his chair, bending forward and confronting them.
For a moment I imagined he meant to address them as a crowd. But his fine sense of business prevailed, and he signed to the Clerk to read the first charge.