“What should I do? I have nowhere to go. I’m teetotal now.”
It requires quite a long and subtle study of the Lancashire witness to really understand when he is condescending to incivility, though many of his phrases might too hastily be interpreted against his sense of good manners. An excellent old brewery collector was trying to recover a lost barrel, and was quite unable to show me documentary evidence of its residence in the defendant’s house. I was cross-examining him about it, and could get no satisfaction.
“When was the beer sold?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Was it several years ago?”
“Nay, but I don’t know.”
“But I must know the date,” I replied sternly.
He folded his hands in despair at my unreasonable obstinacy and sighed deeply, and speaking with slow emphasis said: “Then all I can say is that you’ll have to go down to the brewery.”
I shall not easily forget the entire change of scene caused in a small County Court drama by a very
Lancashire witness. The plaintiff was a south-country Chemist’s assistant, most dapper and polite—a very Osric of the pharmaceutical world. His employer had dismissed him for drunkenness. On the view it was hard to believe that the plaintiff had vigour enough for any such delinquency, but his testimony, given in a mincing voice, was a little suspicious.