“And juries?” I began to ask.
“Here we are,” remarked Uncle Dudley, turning in toward the guarded portals of the great hall.
“I have a friend among the attendants here, a thoughtful and discerning man. I will learn from him where we may look for the spiciest case. He takes a lively interest in the flaying of editors. I believe he was once a printer. He will tell us where the axe gleams most savagely to-day: where; we shall get the most journalistic blood for our money. You were speaking of juries. Just take a look at one of them—if you are not afraid of spoiling your luncheon—and you will see that they speak for themselves. They regard all newspapers as public enemies—particularly when the betting tips have been more misleading than usual. They stand by their kind. They ‘give the poor man a chance’ without hesitation, without fail. They are here to avenge the discovery of movable types, and they do it. Come with me, and witness the disembowelling of a daily, the hamstringing of a sub-editor—a publisher felled by the hand of the Law like a bullock. Since the bear-pits of Bankside were closed there has been no such sport.”
Unhappily, it turned out that none of the Judges had come down to the Courts that day. There was a threat of east wind in the air. “You see, if they don’t live, to a certain age they get no pensions, and their heirs turn a key in the lock on the old gentlemen in weather like this,” explained Uncle Dudley, turning disappointedly away.
Detailing certain Prudential Measures taken during the Panic incident to a Late Threatened Invasion
I HOPE,” said Mrs Albert, “that I am as free to admit my errors in judgment as another. Evidently there has been a mistake in this matter, and it is equally obvious that I am the one who must have made it. I did not need to have this pointed out to me, Dudley. What I looked to you for was advice, counsel, sympathy. You seem not to realise at all how important this is to me. A false step now may ruin everything—and you simply sit there and grin!”
“My dear sister,” replied Uncle Dudley, smoothing his face, “the smile was involuntary. It shall not recur. I was only thinking of Albert’s enthusiasm for the——”
“Yes, I know!” put in Mrs Albert; “for that girl with the zouave jacket——”