"So far as I'm concerned," observed Tom Elliott, "I'm willing to bring him in not guilty. It's my belief he's been led into it all along, and I know perhaps as much about it as anyone. There's a good deal about the affair what's been kept quiet by both sides. Perhaps I might have said a word for one."

Mr. Moss interrogated the foreman with uplifted eyebrows.

"Do you think it does make any difference?"

The foreman shrugged his shoulders. He was still. Captain Rudd spoke for him.

"It makes the difference between right and wrong-that's all."

Mr. Plummer leaned his elbows on the table; his spectacled countenance wore its most benevolent smile.

"Hearken to me, dear sir. We are all Christian men-"

"Not necessarily at this moment; at this moment we are jurymen-only jurymen."

Mr. Plummer sighed, as if in sorrow. He turned to the others, as if desiring their forgiveness for the captain.

"This gentleman-I trust he will pardon me for saying so-puts a curb upon his natural generosity. His is what we may, perhaps, term the military mind-precise, and, if we may say so, just a little-the merest atom-hard. For my part I think, Mr. Foreman, we might, as Christian men, conscientiously return a negative finding, intimating at the same time that, owing to the prisoner's tender years, we are not unwilling to give him the benefit of the doubt."

The captain dissented.

"What sort of mind do you call yours, sir? Were we to return such a verdict, we should make of ourselves the laughing-stock of England."

The foreman shook his head.

"I hardly think England will interest itself in our proceedings to that extent. Similar verdicts in similar cases are, I imagine, more common than you may suppose. I am not advocating such a course, but I believe it would be logically possible for us to inform the magistrates that, while some of us entertain strong opinions on the subject of the prisoner's guilt, being desirous to arrive at a state of agreement, and also bearing in mind the youth of the accused, we are willing to acquiesce in a verdict of acquittal."

"I agree to that," cried Mr. Longsett. "That's fair enough. Now, is it all settled?"

"I'm not."

The speaker was the captain. All eyes were turned on him.

The foreman spoke.

"Don't you think, captain, you-might swallow a gnat?"

"I don't wish to set myself up as a superior person, but, under the circumstances, I'm afraid I can't."

"Quite so. Now we know where we are." Mr. Longsett composed himself in his chair; planting his hands against his sides he stuck out his elbows; he screwed up his mouth. "It just shows you how one man can play skittles with eleven others."

The captain was silently contemptuous.

"I really doubt if it matters." It was Mr. Moss who said it; he whispered an addition into the captain's ear: "If the young scamp isn't hung to-day he'll be hung to-morrow."

The captain ignored the whisper; his reply was uttered with sufficient clearness.

"Perhaps, sir, your sense of duty is not a high one."

The eleven eyed each other, and the table, and vacancy; a spirit of depression seemed to be settling down upon them all. Old Parkes, with elongated visage, addressed a melancholy inquiry to no one in particular. "What's us sitting here for?"

Jacob responded-"That's what I should like to know, George. Perhaps it's because a gentleman's made up his mind to ruin a poor young lad for life."

The captain took up the gauntlet.

"I presume it is useless for me to point out to you that your statement is as incorrect as it is unjustified. I have heard a good deal about the absurdities of the jury system. I may tell you, sir, that you have presented me with an object-lesson which will last me the rest of my life. It occurs to me as just possible that the sooner the system is reformed the better."

"Ah! I daresay it would. Then gentlemen like you would be able to grind poor lads under your feet whenever it suited you. Oh, dear, no! You think yourself somebody, don't you, captain?"

Captain Rudd looked as if he would if he could; in his eyes there gleamed something very like a foreshadowing of assault and battery. The foreman made a little movement with his hands, which, possibly, was intended to be a counsel of peace. Anyhow, the captain allowed the last word to be Jacob's. Mr. Tyler, his handkerchief still pressed to his ear, appealed to the captain in a tone of voice which was almost tearful.

"As man to man, sir, let me beseech you to take pity on the dreadful situation we are in."

"To what situation do you allude, sir?"

"I am alluding, sir, to the dreadful pain which I am enduring in my left ear; you can have no conception of its severity. Besides which I have a sadly weakly constitution generally-as is well known to more than one gentleman who is now present. I have suffered for the last twenty years from chronic lumbago, together with a functional derangement of the liver, which, directly any irregularity occurs in my hours or habits, invariably reduces me to a state of collapse. I assure you that if this enforced confinement and prolonged abstention from my natural food endures much longer, in my present state of health the consequences may be highly serious."

"I don't follow your reasoning, sir. Because you are physically unfitted to serve upon a jury, and culpably omitted to inform the court of the fact, you wish me not to do my duty, you having already failed to do yours?"

"I wish you," sighed Mr. Tyler, "to be humane."

"This is the first jury ever I was on," groaned Mr. Parkes, shaking his ancient head as if it had been hung on wires, "and I'll take care that it's the last. Such things didn't ought to be-not when a man's got to my years, they didn't. Who's young Jim Bailey, I'd like to know, that we should go losing our dinners acause of him? Hit him over the head and ha' done with it-that's what I say."

"You must excuse me, Captain Rudd," said Mr. Timmins, "but why can't you strain a point as well as the rest of us? Why shouldn't we, as a body of practical men, take a merciful view of the position and give the boy another chance? He is only a boy after all."

"We are not automata though we are jurymen, and surely we may, without shame, allow ourselves to be actuated by the dictates of our common humanity."

Thus Mr. Plummer. Mr. Slater agreed with him in a fashion of his own.

"Let the boy go and have done with it-I daresay we can trust Jacob to give him a good sound towelling."

"He's had that already."

There was a grimness in Mr. Longsett's tone which caused more than one of his hearers to smile.

"I'll be bound his mother's crying her eyes out for him at home."

This was Tom Elliott. Mr. Plummer joined his hands as if in supplication.

"Poor woman!" he murmured.

"It comes hard upon the mothers," said Mr. Hisgard.

"And Jim Bailey's mother is as honest and hard-working a woman as ever lived-that I know as a fact. And she's seen a lot of trouble!"

As he made this announcement Mr. Timmins shuffled his pack of cards, as if the action relieved his mind. For some moments everyone was still. Suddenly Mr. Tyler, who had been looking a picture of misery, broke into audible lamentations.

"Oh dear! oh dear! I'm very ill! Won't anyone take pity on a man in agony?"

So intense was his sympathy with his own affairs that the tears trickled down his cheeks. Mr. Timmins endeavoured to encourage him.

"Come, Mr. Tyler, come! Bear up! It'll soon be over now!"

"If anything serious comes of the cruel suffering which is being inflicted on me I shall look to you gentlemen for compensation. I'm a poor man; it's always a hard struggle, with my poor health, to make two ends meet. I can't afford to pay doctors' bills which have been incurred by the actions of others!"

"That's pleasant hearing-what do you think, Mr. Hisgard? – if we've got to contribute to this gentleman's doctors' bills! Come, Mr. Tyler, don't talk like that, or soon we shall all of us be ill. I know I shall!"

There was a further pause. Then Mr. Moss delivered himself.

"I'm bound to admit that what Mr. Timmins has said of the prisoner's mother I know to be correct of my own knowledge. Mrs. Bailey has been a widow for many years; she has brought up a large family with the labour of her own hands; she has had many difficulties to contend with, and is deserving of considerable sympathy. There is that to be said. Come, Captain Rudd, for once in a way let us be illogical. If you will agree to a verdict of not guilty I will."

Captain Rudd, his head thrown back, continued for some moments to silently regard the ceiling. The others watched him, exhibiting, in various degrees, unmistakable anxiety. Finally, with his eyes still turned ceilingwards, he capitulated.

"All right. Let it be as you say. Rather than the gentleman in front of me should perish on his chair, and other gentlemen should suffer any longer from the absence of their 'natural food,' I am willing to be joined with the rest, and, with you, to place myself under the dominion of Mr. Jacob Longsett's thumb."

"Hear, hear! Bravo!" There were observations expressive of satisfaction from different quarters; but Mr. Longsett, in particular, was enthusiastic in his approbation.

"Your words does you honour, captain!"

"You think so? – I'm sorry we differ."

The foreman rapped upon the table.

"Order, gentlemen, please. Then may I take it that, at present, we are finally agreed upon a verdict of not guilty?"

"Coupled," corrected Mr. Moss, "with an intimation to the effect that, considering the prisoner's age, we have been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt."

"Precisely. Does any other gentleman wish to make an observation? Apparently not. Then may I also take it that we are ready to return into court?"

Acclamations in the affirmative rose from all sides. The foreman rang the hand-bell which was in front of him. The usher appeared.

* * * * *

So the prisoner was acquitted, no one in the court having the faintest notion why.

The Chancellor's Ward

I

One really ought to write, She married him, not He married her.

"The simple question is, my dear Tommy, are you going to take me or leave me?"

This was in Hyde Park. They were seated on one of those seats which are in front of the police-station. Neither of them ought to have been there, which, of course, was one of the reasons why they were. Mr. Stanham turned his eye-glass full upon Miss Cullen. Perhaps he thought that that was sufficient answer. Anyhow, she went on:

"In other words, are you going to marry me, or are you not?"

"I am; gad, I should rather hope so. I say, don't be too hard upon a fellow, Frank."

"Call me Fanny, don't call me Frank! Don't you know that my name is Frances, sir, which has absolutely no connection with Frank?"

"That's all right, old man."

That is what Mr. Stanham murmured. Extraordinary how some men do talk to women nowadays, even to the women whom they love!

"Then, if you do intend to marry me, Mr. Thomas Stanham, you'll be so good as to do so on Thursday morning next, before noon."

Mr. Stanham began to scratch the gravel with his stick.

"And get seven years' penal."

"Stuff! They don't give you penal servitude for marrying wards in Chancery. It's contempt of court."

"Yes, I know. Have to wash out your cell at Holloway, and stand at 'attention,' with your hat off, while the governor cuts you dead."

"Then perhaps you will be so good as to tell me what it is that you do propose to do. Do you imagine that you are the sort of person the Court of Chancery will ever allow to marry me?"

"Haven't so much imagination, my dear Frank."

"Call me Fanny, not Frank! You are not to call me Frank. Then do you suppose that I'm the sort of girl who's willing to wait, and not to marry her sweetheart, until she's twenty-five? because if you suppose anything of that kind we must be perfect strangers."

"It's very good of you, I'm sure."

"Oh, I daresay. You don't love me that much." Miss Cullen flicked her parasol. "Because a horrid old uncle chooses to say that I'm to be a ward of the court until I'm five-and-twenty am I to be a spinster all my life? If you love me the least little bit you'd invite the Lord Chancellor to come and see you marry me in the middle of Hyde Park, even if, directly the deed was done, he had your head cut off on Tower Hill."

"Thanks, dear boy."

Of course he married her. On the morning of the specified Thursday she went out for a stroll, and he went out for a stroll, and they met at the registrar's, and, as she put it, the deed was done.

And, when the deed was done, she went home to lunch, and he went, not home to lunch, but to a private place, where he could swear. Now here they were, both of them, at Tuttenham. They encountered each other on the doorstep. She said, "How do you do, Mr. Stanham?" And he said, "How do you do, Miss Cullen?"

"Nice way in which to have to greet your own wife," he told himself, having reached the comparatively safe solitude of his own apartment.

Then the Duke got him into his own particular smoking-room. The Duke was in an arm-chair. Mr. Stanham stood before the fireplace with his hands in his pockets. The talk wandered from Dan to Beersheba. Then, a good deal à propos des bottes, the Duke dropped what he evidently intended to be taken as a hint.

"If you take my advice, young man, you'll keep clear of Frances Cullen. She's here."

Mr. Stanham winced.

"Is she? Yes, I know. I met her on the steps."

"Did you!"

The Duke eyed him. He, not improbably, had observed the wince.

"Warnings are issued all along that coast. Steer clear."

"What do you think they'd do to a man if he were to marry her?" "Do to him! Tommy! I hope you're not meditating such a crime. She's not an ordinary ward of the court, any more than she's an ordinary millionaire."

"So I suppose."

"You had a little run with her in town. Everybody had their eyes on you, as you're aware. And when the Duchess told me she was coming I'd half a mind to write and put you off-fact! This is not a house in which even tacit encouragement can be offered to a dalliance with crime. Not" – the Duke puffed at his pipe-"not that she's half a bad sort of girl. She's clever. Very pretty. And she's got a way about her which plays havoc with a man."

"Much obliged to you, I'm sure."

"What do you mean?"

"For saying a good word for my wife."

"Your wife?"

"Mrs. Thomas Stanham-née Cullen."

"Tommy! You don't mean it!"

"You can bet your pile I do, and then safely go one better. I've got a copy of the marriage certificate in my pocket, and I rather fancy that she's got the original document in hers."

"You-young blackguard!"

"Sort of cousin of yours, ain't I, Datchet? It's all in the family, you know, blackguard and all."

"How did you do it? – And when? – And who knows?"

"Only you and me, and the lady. That's what's weighing on my mind. What's the good of having a wife if she ain't your wife-or, at any rate, if you daren't say that she's your wife, for the life of you?"

The Duke suddenly rose from his seat. He seemed to be in a state of actual agitation.

"Tommy, do you know that the Chancellor is coming here?"

"Who?"

"The Lord Chancellor. The carriage went to meet him an hour ago. I expect him every moment."

Mr. Stanham looked a trifle blank.

"I didn't know the ministry was formed."

"It's formed, but it's not announced; Triggs is to be the Chancellor."

"And what sort of gentleman may Triggs be when he's at home?"

"Sir Tristram? Well!" The Duke was walking up and down the room. He appeared to be reflecting. "He's rather a queer card, Triggs is. He's been a bit of a wildish character in his time-and they do say that his time's not long gone. He has a temper of his own-a nasty one." Pausing, the Duke fixedly regarded Mr. Stanham. "I should say that when Triggs learns what you have done he will clap you into gaol, and keep you there, at any rate until Miss Cullen ceases to be a ward of the court."

Mr. Stanham's countenance wore a look of dire consternation.

"No! She's to be a ward until she's twenty-five, and she's not yet twenty-two."

"Then, in that case, I should say that, at the very least, you are in for three good years of prison. My advice to you is-"

The Duke's advice remained unuttered. Just at that moment the door was opened. A servant ushered in a new-comer.

"Sir Tristram Triggs."

The Duke, striding forward, held out both his hands. "Sir Tristram! And how long is it to be Sir Tristram?"

The other shrugged his shoulders.

"For a few hours, more or less, I suppose. I don't know much about this kind of thing. I daresay I shall know more about it when I've done."

"When you've done? May that not be for many and many a year! Allow me to introduce to you a friend of mine-Mr. Thomas Stanham."

Sir Tristram turned. For the first time he appeared to notice Mr. Stanham.

Physically the new great man was short, and inclined to ponderosity. The entire absence of hair upon his face served to accentuate its peculiar characteristics. It was a square face-and, in particular, the jaw was square. His big eyes looked from under a penthouse formed by his overhanging brows. As one looked at him one instinctively felt that this was a man whom it would be safer to have as a friend than an enemy. As he turned a faint smile seemed to be struggling into existence about the corners of his great mouth. But directly his glance alighted upon Mr. Stanham that smile vanished into the ewigkeit. He looked at him very much as a bull-terrier might look at a rat. And he said, in a tone of voice which seemed fraught with curious significance-

"I have had the pleasure of meeting this gentleman before."

On his part Mr. Stanham regarded Sir Tristram with a supercilious air which, perhaps unconsciously to himself, was only too frequently seen upon his face-as if Sir Tristram were an inferior thing.

"I'd no idea that your name was Triggs."

The Duke, standing behind Sir Tristram, clenched his fists, and glared at Mr. Stanham as if he would like to have knocked him down.

It happened, shortly afterwards, that Miss Cullen left her bedroom to come downstairs. As she went along the corridor she met a gentleman who was being conducted by a servant, probably to his own apartment. The gentleman was Sir Tristram Triggs. When Sir Tristram saw Miss Cullen, and Miss Cullen saw Sir Tristram, they both of them stopped short. The great man's complexion was, normally, of a ruddy hue. At sight of the lady he turned the colour of a beetroot, boiled. She drew herself up to the full capacity of her inches. And she uttered a single monosyllable.

"You!"

That was all she said-then went sweeping on.

"That horrid man! – He here! – To think of it! – If I'd only known that he was coming I do believe, in spite of Tommy, that I'd have stayed away."

At the foot of the stairs Miss Cullen encountered Mr. Stanham. That gentleman had, as he was wont to have, his hands in his pockets. Also, as he was not wont to have, he had a face as long as his arm.

"I say, Frank, old man, isn't there somewhere where I can have a word or two with you on the strict Q.T.?"

"Certainly-the library. There's never a soul in there."

One would not like to libel Tuttenham so far as to say, with Miss Cullen, that the only tenants the library ever had were the books. But, on that occasion, it did chance that the pair had the whole place to themselves. Mr. Stanham perched himself on a corner of the table, still with his hands in his pockets.

"There's going to be a pretty kettle of fish, dear boy."

That was what the gentleman observed.

"My dear child, what do you mean? What is the matter?"

"The Lord Chancellor's here."

"No! – How do you know?"

"Datchet just introduced me to him."

"Oh, Tommy, I say, what fun!"

With a little laugh the lady clapped her hands. She appeared to be gifted with a keener eye for comedy than Mr. Stanham.

"I don't know what you call fun. It happens that the new Lord Chancellor is a man who, I have good reason to believe, would give a tidy trifle for a chance of getting his knife into me."

"Whatever for?"

"I'll tell you the story. Last year, when I was at Canterstone for the shooting, I was placed next to a man whom I had never seen in my life, and whom I never wanted to see in my life again. What Charlie asked him for beats me. I believe, if he knew one end of a gun from the other, it was as much as he did know. I doubt if there ever was his ditto as a shot. I wiped his eye over and over again. I kept on doing it. I couldn't help it-I had to. He never hit a bird. But he didn't like it any the more for that. We had something like a row before the day was over. I fancy that I said something about a barber's clerk. Anyhow, I know I walked off there and then."

"You nice, agreeable child! It's my opinion that all you men are the same when you are shooting-missing links. And, pray, what has this pleasant little sidelight on the sweetness of your disposition got to do with the new Lord Chancellor?"

"Only this-the new Lord Chancellor's the man I called a barber's clerk."

"Tommy! How horrible!"

"It does seem pretty lively. You should have seen how he looked at me when Datchet just now introduced us. Unless I am mistaken in the gentleman, when this little affair of ours leaks out, and I'm brought up in front of him and he sees who I am, he'll straightway consign me to the deepest dungeon, and keep me there, at any rate as long as he's Lord Chancellor. It's only a cheerful little prophecy of mine. But you mark my words, and see."

"My poor dear boy! Whatever shall we do?"

"There's one thing I should like to do, and chance it; I should like to kick Sir Tristram Triggs!"

"Kick who? Sir Tristram Triggs! Tommy! Why would you like to kick Sir Tristram Triggs?"

"That's the beggar's name."

"The beggar's name? Can it be that Sir Tristram Triggs is the new Lord Chancellor?" She threw out her arms with a gesture of burlesque melodrama. "Tommy! Kiss me! Quick. Before I faint!"

"I never saw a chap like you for kissing."

"That's a pretty thing to say! Although we may be married, sir, we have not yet been upon our honeymoon."

"I'll kiss you, if you like."

"Thank you kindly, gentle sir!" She favoured him with a sweeping curtsey. "Tommy, even you have no idea of the ramifications and complications of our peculiar situation." Mr. Stanham had removed his hands from his pockets. They occupied a more agreeable position round the lady's waist. "See if I don't snatch you from the lion's jaws."

"Does that mean that you will help me to escape from Holloway?"

"It means that you will never get as far as Holloway!"

"Am I to die upon the road then?"

"Don't talk like that, don't! You don't know what a wife you've got! You don't know how she loves you, worthless creature that you are! Tommy, do say that you love me, just a little bit! There, you needn't squeeze me quite so tight. I can't explain to you all about it. I will some day! There's going to be a duel, perhaps to the death! between the Lord Chancellor and yours to command; and if that august personage, in the figure anyhow, of Sir Tristram Triggs, is not worsted and overthrown, I will give you leave, sir, to say that you do not admire my taste in dress. Tommy, don't."

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Frivolities, Especially Addressed to Those Who Are Tired of Being Serious

* * * * *

The Chancellor's Ward

I

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