The Chief Baron scarcely deigned a glance at the cicatrix; he was high above such puny considerations. He was at that moment Governor-General of India and Prime Minister of England together. He was legislating for hundreds of millions of dark-skins, and preparing his explanations of his policy for the pale faces at home.
“'Mark my words, Haire,' said I,” continued the Judge, with increased pomposity of manner, “'this is the beginning of insurrection in India.' We have a maxim in law, Colonel Sewell, Like case, like rule. So was it there. May I help you to this curry?”
“I declare, my Lord, I was beginning to forget how hungry I was. Shall I be deemed impertinent if I ask how you obtained your marvellous—for it is marvellous—knowledge of India?”
“Just as I know the Japanese constitution; just as I know Central Africa; just as I know, and was able to quote some time back, that curious chapter of the Brehon laws on substitutes in penal cases. My rule of life has been, never to pass a day without increasing the store of my acquirements.”
“And all this with the weighty charge and labor of your high office.”
“Yes, sir; I have been eighteen years on the Bench. I have delivered in that time some judgments which have come to be deemed amongst the highest principles of British law. I have contributed largely to the periodical literature of the time. In a series of papers—you may not have heard of them—signed 'Icon,' in the 'Lawyer's Treasury of Useful Facts,' I have defended the Bar against the aggressive violence of the Legislature, I hope it is not too much to say, triumphantly.”
“I remember Judge Beale, our Indian Chief-Justice, referring to those papers as the most splendid statement of the position and claims of the barrister in Great Britain.”
“Beale was an ass, sir; his law was a shade below his logic,—both were pitiable.”
“Indeed?—yes, a little more gravy. Is your cook a Provençal? that omelette would seem to say so.”
“My cook is a woman, and an Irishwoman, sir. She came to me from Lord Manners, and, I need not say, with the worst traditions of her art, which, under Lady Lendrick's training, attained almost to the dignity of poisoning.”