"It is a very serious undertaking!" said Berger. "The matter is one of the greatest importance."
"Yes, and just for that reason," grumbled the old man, almost whimpering. "I do not want to undertake any such responsibility, now, when merely thinking gives me a head-ache. I suffer a great deal from head-aches, Dr. Berger. And it is such a ticklish undertaking! For you see either the maid-servant told the truth at the trial, in which case this fresh examination is superfluous, or she lied and ergo was guilty of perjury and ergo is a very tricky female! And how am I ever to get to the bottom of a tricky female, Dr. Berger?"
"Did you tell the Chief Justice this?" asked Berger.
"Oh, of course! For half an hour I was telling him about my condition and how I always get a head-ache now if I have to think. But he stuck to his point, 'you will have to undertake the matter: you must exert yourself!' Good Heavens! what power of exertion has one left at seventy years of age! Well, good morning, dear Dr. Berger! But it's odious--most odious!"
Berger looked after the old man as he painfully hobbled along: "And in such hands," he thought, "rests the fate of my two friends."
Under the weight of this thought, he had not the courage to face Sendlingen. He turned and went home in a melancholy mood.
When the next day towards noon, he was turning homewards after a trial at which he had been the defending barrister, he again met Mr. Justice Hoche, who was just leaving the building, in the portico of the Courts. The old gentleman was manifestly in a high state of contentment.
"Well," asked Berger, "is the witness here already? Have you begun the examination?"
"Begun? I have ended it!" chuckled the old man.
"And re bene gesta one is entitled to rest. I shall let the law take care of itself to-day and go home. I haven't even got a head-ache over it; certainly it didn't require any great effort of thought--I soon got at the truth."