"John, this kind of language belongs to the old days, when even speech was unequal."
"No matter; you understand it. Lord! Sammy Grout, the brewer's boy—we were both Whitechapel pets; but I was an old 'un of five and thirty, while you were on'y beginning to walk the Waste with a gal on your arm—p'r'aps—and a ha'penny fag in your mouth. Hold on, now. It's like this—"
What with the insolence of Dr. Linister, and the sight of the old dresses, and the sound of the old language, I myself was carried away. Yes, I was once more Sam Grout; again I walked upon the pavement of the Whitechapel Road; again I was a boy in the great brewery of Mile End Road.
"Go on, John Lax," I said, with condescension. "Revive, if it is possible, something of the Past. I give you full leave. But when you come to the Present, forget not the reverence due to the Suffragan."
"Right, guv'nor. Well, then, it's like this. I see them men and women dressed up in the old fallals, and goin' on like I've seen 'em goin' on long ago with their insolence and their haw-haws—damn 'em—and all the old feelings came back to me, and I thought I was spoutin' again on a Sunday mornin', and askin' my fellow-countrymen if they always meant to sit down and be slaves. And the memory came back to me—ah! proper it did—of a speech I made 'em one mornin' all about this French Revolution. 'Less 'ave our own Revolution,' I sez, sez I. 'Less bring out all the Bloomin' Kings and Queens,' I sez, 'the Dukes and Markisses, the fat Bishops and the lazy Parsons. Less do what the French did. Less make 'em shorter by the 'ed,' I sez. That's what I said that mornin'. Some of the people laughed, and some of 'em went away. There never was a lot more difficult to move than them Whitechappellers. They'd listen—and then they'd go away. They'd too much fine speeches give 'em—that was the matter with 'em—too much. Nothing never came of it. That night I was in the Public havin' a drop, and we began to talk. There was a row, and a bit of a fight. But before we was fired out I up and said plain, for everybody to hear, that when it came to choppin' off their noble 'eds I'd be the man to do it—and joyful, I said. Well now, Sammy Grout, you were in that Public Bar among that crowd—maybe you've forgotten it. But I remember you very well. You was standin' there, and you laughed about the choppin'. You've forgotten, Sammy. Think. It was a fine summer evenin': you weren't in Church. Come now—you can't say you ever went to Church, Sammy Grout."
"I never did. But go on, John Lax. Recall as much of the Past as you wish, if it makes you love the Present more. I would not say aught to diminish an honest zeal."
"Right, guv'nor. Well, I never got that chance. There was no choppin' of 'eds at all. When we had to murder the old people, your Honor would have it done scientifically; and there was as many old working-men killed off as swells, which was a thousand pities, an' made a cove's heart bleed. What I say is this. Here we've got a return to the old Times. Quite unexpected it is. Now we've got such a chance, which will never come again, let 'em just see how the old Times worked. Have a Procession, with the Executioner goin' before the criminals, his axe on his shoulder ready to begin. If you could only be Sammy Grout again—but that can't be, I'm afraid—what a day's outing you would have had to be sure! Suffragan, let us show 'em how the old Times worked. And let me be the Executioner. I'll do it, I promise you, proper. I've got the old spirit upon me—ah! and the old strength, too—just as I had then. Oh! It's too much!" He sat down and hugged the axe. I thought he would have kissed it. "It's too much! To think that the time would ever come when I should execute a swell—and that swell the Arch Physician himself. Damn him! He's always looked as if everybody else was dirt beneath his feet."
"I know not," I told him gently, "what may be the decision of the Court. But, John Lax, continue to grind your axe. I would not throw cold water on honest zeal. Your strength, you say, is equal to your spirit. You will not flinch at the last moment. Ah! we have some honest men left."
The Court was held that morning in the nave of the House itself. The Judges, who were the whole College of Physicians, sat in a semicircle; whereas the three prisoners stood in a row—the Arch Physician carrying himself with a haughty insolence which did not assist his chances: clinging to his arm, still in her silk dress, with her bracelets and chains, and her hair artfully arranged, was the woman called Mildred. She looked once, hurriedly, at the row of Judges, and then turned with a shudder—she found small comfort in those faces—to her lover, and laid her head upon his shoulder, while he supported her with his arm. The degradation and folly of the Arch Physician, apart from the question of his guilt, as shown in this behavior, were complete.
Beside Mildred stood the girl Christine. Her face was flushed; her eyes were bright: she stood with clasped hands, looking steadily at the Judges: she wore, instead of the Regulation Dress, a frock of white stuff, which she had found, I suppose, in the Museum—as if open disobedience of our laws would prove a passport to favor. She had let her long hair fall upon her shoulders and down her back. Perhaps she hoped to conquer her Judges by her beauty—old time phrase! Woman's beauty, indeed, to Judges who know every bone and every muscle in woman's body, and can appreciate the nature of her intellect, as well as of her structure! Woman's Beauty! As if that could ever again move the world!