“I was about to say,” continued Mr. Justice Doughty, “as my brother Pangloss says, it may have been given while he was considering a point in Justinian. What is the misdirection?”
“O, my lud, the misdirection was, I venture respectfully and deferentially to submit, and with the utmost deference to the learned Judge, in his lordship’s telling the jury that if they found that the right of way which the defendant set up in his answer to the trespass, or easement—but perhaps, my lud, I had better read from the short-hand writer’s notes of his ludship’s summing-up. This is it, my lud, his ludship said: ‘In an action for stopping of his ancient lights —.”
“What!” said Mr. Justice Doughty, “did he black the plaintiff’s eyes, then?”
“No, my lud,” said Mr. Ricochet, “that was never alleged or suggested.”
“I only used it by way of illustration,” said Mr. Justice Pangloss.
Then their lordships consulted together, and after about three-quarters of an hour’s conversation the learned Mr. Justice Doughty said:
“You can take a rule, Mr. Ricochet.”
“On all points, my lud, if your ludships please.”
“It will be more satisfactory,” said his lordship, “and then we shall see what there is in it. At present, I must confess, I don’t understand anything about it.”
And I saw that what there was really in it was very much like what there is in a kaleidoscope, odds and ends, which form all sorts of combinations when you twist and turn them about in the dark tube of a “legal argument.”