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

"'I've only been a-squashin' 'em,' I says; 'that's all!'

"'You've only been a-squashin' 'em?' he says-and he gives a kind of gasp, like as if he was taken short of breath upon a sudden. And he looks about the room.

"'What 'ats are these?' he says.

"'They is the 'ats,' I says, 'what was given to me by the gents as is at the party.'

"He gives another sort of gasp, and there came something into his face what I didn't altogether like the look of.

"'Who's been a-destroyin' of 'em?' he says.

"'No one ain't been a-destroyin' of 'em,' I says. 'I've only been a-sittin' on 'em to make 'em lie down flat.'

"'Oh!' he says, short and sharp like. 'Is that all you have been a-doin'? And what sort of a drunken idiot may you be, pray?'

"'I'm not drunk,' I says, 'seein' as 'ow I haven't even seen the sight of liquor since I've been inside this blessed 'ouse. And, as for idiot, I ain't so much of a idiot, perhaps, as you are'; for I didn't care who he was, nor yet what he was. I'd had about enough of being bully-ragged.

"'May I venture to ask who brought you here?' he says.

"'No one brought me 'ere,' I says, 'seein' as 'ow I came along of Mr. Perkins, to oblige him; and now I wish I hadn't, and so I tell you straight.'

"'I also,' he says,' am inclined to wish you hadn't.'

"Very hard and stern he was. I didn't like the look of him, nor yet the sound of him. 'Send Perkins to me,' he says. Presently Mr. Perkins, he comes 'urryin' up.

"'Perkins,' says Mr. Sheepshanks, 'what scoundrel is this you have brought into my 'ouse?'

"'It's only a young man from the country, sir,' says Perkins, 'as I brought with me to 'elp in the cloak-room. I do 'ope he has been doin' of nothing wrong?'

"And he gives me a glare out of his eye, like as if I had been doin' anything to him.

"'I don't know if you're a-thinkin',' says this 'ere Mr. Sheepshanks, a-puffin' and a-pantin', as it seemed to me, with rage, 'that I asked my friends to my 'ouse to have their 'ats destroyed; because your young man, as you says is from the country-and I 'opes to goodness as 'ow he'll soon go back to it! – has done for every one of 'em.'

"'I denies it!' I says. 'I tells you again, as I tells you afore, that I've only been a-squashin' of 'em and a-sittin' on 'em to make 'em lie down flat!'

"When I says that, the way Mr. Perkins goes on at me was what I never had expected. He abused me scandalous. He took me by the neck, and he 'ustled me into the 'all. And there was all the people what was at the party a-crowdin' on the stairs. If you'll believe me, before I 'ardly knew what 'ad 'appened, I found myself a-standin'…!'

"Yes, that were the first time ever I acted as a waiter-likewise, it was the very last.

"When I goes round to put the 'orse ready for market, his missus, she meets me at the door. She gives me the money that was due to me, and she says as 'ow she didn't think as 'ow I had better stay for to have a talk with Perkins, because as 'ow he might be violent. So I didn't. And I've never set eyes on him from that day to this.

"It was some time before I quite understood what it was had made the gents what was at that there party so excited. One day, comin' along a street near the Strand, I sees in a shop window a 'igh 'at what was a-shuttin' of itself up and a-openin' of itself out without, so far as I could see, no one a-doin' nothing to it. Some sort of machinery, I expect as 'ow it was. So I stops and I takes a look at it. There was a boy a-lookin' at it too. So I says to him-

"'What kind of a 'at do you call that?' I says.

"'It's a hopera 'at, ain't it?' he says. 'Who do you think as you're a-gettin' at?'

"I wasn't a-gettin' at no one, and it was like that there boy's impudence to suppose as 'ow I was.

"'Oh! a hopera 'at, is it?' I says. 'You don't 'appen to know if that's the same as a 'igh 'at, do you?'

"'A 'igh 'at!' he says. 'Go on! Ax your grandmother! P'r'aps your mother 'ardly knows you're out! Go and prig the parish pump and pop it with a peeler!'

"And that there boy, he 'ooks it. And it was well for him he did. If I had a-got my 'ands on him he'd have known it. But, from the way in which that 'at was a-goin' on in that there window, and from what that there boy says, I took it that there was two kinds of 'igh 'ats-the hopera kind and the other kind. And, in supposin' that the other kind could be squashed in, like the hopera kind, was just where I had made my error."

Returning a Verdict

It was in the country, at the last Quarter Sessions, a case of theft. James Bailey, in the employ of Samuel Nichols, a fishmonger, was charged with stealing certain trusses of hay and bushels of corn. The jury had retired to consider their verdict.

"Of course," observed the foreman, who had seated himself at the head of the table, "we've only come out here as a matter of form. There's no doubt that the young scamp did it."

William Baker, leaning towards him, shading his hand with his mouth, whispered, with the evident intention of addressing him in strictest confidence, "I say guilty!"

Some of the jurymen were standing about the room talking to one another audibly on subjects which had not the slightest connection with the case they were supposed to be considering.

"What I want," said Slater, the butcher of Offley, to old George Parkes of Wormald's Farm, "is a calf-a nice one-just about prime."

With his heavy hand old Parkes nursed his stubbly chin.

"Ah!" he reflected. "I haven't got nothing, not just now, I haven't. Might have in about a month."

Slater shook his head. "Must have it Friday."

"Ah!" Mr. Parkes paused. "I haven't got nothing." Paused again. "I might have, though."

A. B. Timmins, secretary of the local branch of the Primrose League, was calling across the room to Mr. Hisgard, a well-known amateur vocalist, with a view of retaining his services for an approaching "smoker." The foreman looked about him. He raised his voice, rapped on the table.

"Gentlemen, please-business!" Somebody laughed, as if the foreman had been guilty of a joke-so he improved on it. "Business first, pleasure afterwards." The laugher held his peace-the joke fell flat. The jury seated themselves-not with any air of over-anxious haste. The foreman continued-he was one of the most flourishing auctioneers in that division of the county-and now spoke with that half persuasive, half authoritative manner with which many of them were familiar in the rostrum. "We must remember, gentlemen, that the court is waiting. So, with your permission, we will come to the point at once. Those who are of opinion that the prisoner is guilty will please hold up their hands." Seven hands went up. "Those who are of the contrary opinion." One hand was raised-Jacob Longsett's. Mr. Grice, the foreman, eyed the three gentlemen who had made no sign on either occasion. He addressed himself to one of them, "Well, Mr. Tyler, which is it to be?"

"The fact is, Mr. Grice," said Mr. Tyler, "that I've had a bad earache-it was the draught which must have given it me. I think I didn't quite catch all that was being said now and again; but I'm willing to say what the other gentlemen do!"

"You mean that you'll vote with the majority?"

"That's just what I do mean, Mr. Grice."

"I ain't going to say nothing," declared George Parkes, who had also refrained from expressing an opinion. "I don't know no good about young Bailey, nor yet about Sam Nichols neither. Sam Nichols, he's owed me nigh on four pound these three years and more."

"I don't think," observed the foreman, "that we ought to allow personal considerations to enter into the case. It's our duty to speak to the evidence, and to that only."

"I don't care nothing about no evidence. The one's as big a thief as t'other."

Old George clenched his toothless jaws and blinked.

"What'll he get if we bring him in guilty?" asked Mr. Plummer, the third abstainer.

The foreman shook his head. "That oughtn't to influence our decision."

Mr. Plummer differed, and said so.

"It'll influence mine. James Bailey is not yet eighteen. To send him to prison will do him more harm than good. If his case is to come under the First Offenders Act, we shall know where we are."

"We might make a recommendation to that effect," suggested Captain Rudd.

"Excuse me," interposed Mr. Moss, "but I doubt if I could agree to our doing that. I'm afraid that Master Bailey deserves some punishment. This is not the first time he has done this sort of thing. He was dismissed from his last two places for dishonesty."

Again the foreman shook his head.

"That didn't come out in the evidence. You know, gentlemen, what we have to do is to dismiss from our minds any knowledge of the parties which we may have outside the case, and confine our attention to the sworn testimony."

Mr. Moss smiled, declining to be pooh-poohed.

"That's all very well in theory, Mr. Grice, but in practice it won't do. Nichols, with his fish-cart, has done a daily round in this country of some twenty miles or so for the last twelve or fourteen years. I doubt if there is a person in this room who has not some knowledge of him. As for Bailey, his mother lives within a hundred yards of my house; I have known him ever since he was born. I am acquainted, too, with his last two employers, and with the circumstances under which he left them."

"I know nothing of either of the parties," said Captain Rudd.

"You are a new-comer. I doubt, as I say, if any other person present can say the same."

If any other person could, he didn't. There was a pause-broken by the foreman.

"Let us understand our position. Eight of us say guilty-Mr. Tyler goes with the majority; two of us have not yet made up our minds; and Mr. Longsett is the only one who says not guilty. May I inquire, Mr. Longsett, on what grounds you favour an acquittal?"

"You've no right to ask me anything of the kind. This is not the first jury I've served on. Although you're foreman, you're only like the rest of us. What you've got to do is to ask me if I say guilty or not guilty. I say not guilty.

"I believe, Mr. Longsett," insinuated Mr. Moss, "that Bailey is a relation of yours?"

"That's no business of yours."

"Then are we to understand, Mr. Longsett" – the foreman spoke with almost ominous suavity-"that you have arrived at a point at which you are impervious to argument?"

"I say not guilty."

"Even though it may be demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that the prisoner is guilty?"

"It's no good talking to me, Mr. Grice. I say not guilty."

The foreman, stretching out his hands in front of him, looked round the table with an air which was eloquent with deprecation. Old Parkes banged his fist upon the board.

"And I say guilty, and I hope they'll give him seven years-the thieving varmint!"

"Arrived at a state of sudden conviction-eh, George?"

This was Mr. Timmins, who was middle-aged and jaunty.

"Some people are easily convinced," growled Mr. Longsett.

"You're not one of that sort, are you, Jacob?"

This again was Mr. Timmins.

"You won't convince me."

Nor, judging from the expression of Jacob's visage, did there seem to be much probability of their being able to do anything of the kind. There was another interval of silence-broken this time by Captain Rudd.

"Then because this gentleman chooses to differ from us, without condescending to give us his reason for so doing, are we to stultify ourselves, and is justice to be baulked? Is that the situation, Mr. Foreman?"

"Excuse me, Captain Rudd, but Mr. Longsett is not alone. I also say not guilty. The observation of Mr. Parkes, expressing a hope that the prisoner will get seven years, shows to me that a spirit of malignancy is in the air, and to that spirit I am unable to subscribe."

The speaker was Mr. Plummer. The others looked at him. The foreman spoke.

"Pardon me, Mr. Plummer, but why do you say not guilty?"

"Because I decline to be a participator in the condemnation of this mere youth to a ruthless term of penal servitude."

"But, my dear sir, he won't get penal servitude-Mr. Parkes was only joking. He'll get, at the outside, three months."

"That would be too much. It would be sufficient punishment for one of his years-my views on the subject of juvenile delinquency I have never disguised-that he should be requested to come up for judgment when called upon."

"But, my dear sir, if the magistrates leave us a free hand to do our duty, why can't we leave them a free hand to do theirs? The issue we have to decide upon is a very simple one; the responsibility of acting on that decision will be theirs."

Mr. Plummer settled his spectacles on his nose and was silent. Captain Rudd addressed him.

"I suppose you will not deny, sir, that all the evidence goes to prove the prisoner's guilt?"

"There are degrees in guilt."

"Possibly-but you admit that there is guilt, even though it may only be in the positive degree?"

Again Mr. Plummer was still. Mr. Slater called to Mr. Longsett across the table:

"You're a sportsman, Jacob, and I'm a sportsman. I tell you what I'll do. I'll toss you, guilty or not guilty. I can't stop messing about here all day-I've got my beasts to dress."

Mr. Longsett was obviously tempted; the offer appealed to the most susceptible part of him. Still, he shook his head.

"No," he grunted, as if the necessity of announcing such a refusal pained him. "I shan't."

Mr. Plummer was scandalised.

"Such a proposal is disgraceful-it ought not to be allowed to be made. Making of justice a mockery!"

Mr. Slater declined to be snubbed-at least by Mr. Plummer.

"Seems to me as if you don't quite know where you are. First you want to preach to the magistrates, then you want to preach to the jury; perhaps you think you're at the corner of High Street?"

There were those who smiled. The reference was to Mr. Plummer's fondness for open-air expositions of "the Word." Mr. Grice drummed with his fingers on the table.

"Come, gentlemen, come! we're wasting time. As business men we ought to know its value. Now, Mr. Longsett, I've too much faith in your integrity not to know that you're open to conviction. Tell us, where do you think the evidence for the prosecution is not sufficiently strong?" Mr. Longsett did not justify the foreman's faith by answering. "Be frank, on what point are you not satisfied?"

After more than momentary hesitation Mr. Longsett replied, without, however, raising his eyes.

"It's no use talking to me, Mr. Grice, so that's all about it. I say not guilty!"

Mr. Moss explained.

"The plain fact is, Mr. Foreman, Mr. Longsett is a relation of the prisoner; he ought not to have been on this jury at all."

This time Mr. Longsett did raise his eyes-and his voice too.

"I've as much right to be on the jury as you have-perhaps more. Who do you think you are? I pay my way-and I pay my servants too! They don't have to county-court me before they can get their wages. Only the other day I was on a jury when they were county-courting you. So it isn't the first jury I've been on, you see."

Mr. Moss did not seem pleased. The allusion was to a difference which that gentleman had had with one of his servants, and which had been settled in the county court. Again the foreman drummed upon the board.

"Order, gentlemen, order!"

Mr. Timmins turned to Mr. Hisgard. He winked.

"Have a game at crib, Bob? I knew Jacob would be here, so I came provided!"

He produced a cribbage-board. Once more the foreman interposed.

"Keep to the business we have in hand, please, gentlemen."

"Oh, they can have their game, I don't mind. Perhaps I came as well provided as anyone else."

As he replied Jacob took from his pocket a brown paper parcel of considerable dimensions. Tom Elliott, who was sitting by him, instantly snatching it, passed it on to Mr. Hisgard.

"Have a sandwich, Mr. Hisgard?"

"No, thank you. But perhaps Mr. Timmins will?"

He passed the packet to Mr. Timmins. That gentleman made a feint of opening it. Mr. Longsett, rising from his chair, reached for his property across the table.

"None of that; give it back to me." Mr. Timmins tossed the packet to the other end of the table.

"Now, Timmins, what do you mean by that? Do you want me to wipe you across the head?"

Mr. Timmins addressed Mr. Grice. "Now, Mr. Foreman, won't you offer the jury a sandwich each? It is about our dinner-time."

Mr. Grice eyed the packet in front of him as if he were more than half disposed to act on the suggestion.

"I really don't think, Mr. Longsett, that you ought to eat sandwiches out of a pure spirit of contradiction."

"Never mind what you think; you give me back my property, or I'll give the whole lot of you in custody." The parcel was restored to him. He brandished it aloft. "There you are, you see, a lot of grown men go and steal another man's property, and you treat it as a joke. A mere lad goes and looks at a truss of mouldy hay, and you want to ruin him for life. And you call that justice! You ain't going to get me to take a hand in no such justice, so I tell you straight!"

"It went a little farther than 'looks,' didn't it, Mr. Longsett? 'Looks' won't carry even mouldy hay three miles across country."

"And 'looks' won't carry my property from where I'm sitting down to where you are! If Jim Bailey's a thief, so's Tom Elliott-there's no getting over that. Why ain't we sitting on him instead of on that there young 'un?"

"See here, Jacob." Mr. Timmins stretched out towards him his open palm. "Here's a sporting offer for you: if you'll bring Jim Bailey in guilty, I'll bring in Tom Elliott!"

"I won't bring in neither; the one's no more a thief than the other."

"Nice for you, Tom, eh?"

"Oh, I don't mind. I know Jacob. It's not the first time a member of your family's been in trouble, is it, Jacob?"

"By-! if you say that again I'll knock the life right out of you!"

The foreman rapped upon the table.

"Order, gentlemen, order! Keep to the business in hand, if you please."

Mr. Longsett confronted him, towering over Elliott, with clenched fists and flashing eyes.

"Keep him in order then-don't keep on at me! You make him keep a civil tongue in his head, or I will." He glared round the board. "I don't care for the whole damned lot of you. I'm as good as any one of you-perhaps better! I'm here to do my duty according to my conscience and conviction, and I'm going to do it, and I say not guilty, and if we stop here till Christmas you won't make me say no different!"

This announcement was followed by an interval of silence; then Captain Rudd attempted to voice the sense of the meeting.

"In that case, Mr. Foreman, we may as well intimate to the court that we are unable to agree."

"What'll be the consequence of that?"

"The prisoner'll have to stand another trial, when, should none of his relations happen to be upon the jury, there will be no hesitation about bringing in a verdict of guilty-in which case the young scamp will get his deserts."

Stretching his body across the table, Jacob shook his clenched fist in the speaker's face.

"Look here, Captain Rudd, you may be a captain, but you're no blooming gentleman, or you wouldn't talk like that. Captain or no captain, the next time you say anything about Jim Bailey being a relation of mine I'll crack you in the mouth!" Straightening himself, Jacob shook his fist at the eleven. "And I say the same to every one of you. It's no affair of yours what Jim Bailey is to me-so just you mind it."

The captain curled, at the same time, his lip and his moustache, his bearing conveying the scorn which he doubtless felt.

"If you suppose, sir, that I shall allow you to play the common bully with impunity, you are mistaken. You forget yourself, my man!"

"Oh, no! I don't forget myself-it's you who forgot yourself. And as for playing the common bully, it's you began it. You're trying to bully me when you taunt me with Jim Bailey being my relation; you think if you keep it on long enough you'll frighten me into acting against my sense of duty."

The foreman intervened sharply: "Order! Mr. Longsett, your language is improper and irregular; if you are not careful I shall have to report it to the court."

"It's no more improper and irregular than theirs is. We're here to say guilty or not guilty, not to pry into each other's private affairs. If they don't make no personal remarks, I shan't."

"Listen to reason, Mr. Longsett. Do I understand, Mr. Plummer, that you will acquiesce in a verdict of guilty if we prefer a recommendation to the court that the case shall be treated under the First Offenders Act?"

"You are at liberty to so understand, Mr. Grice."

"And you, Mr. Longsett? If we are unable to agree the prisoner will have to go back to prison, and, on his again standing his trial, I have no hesitation in saying that he will be found guilty, when he will be likely to receive much less lenient treatment than now, when we are ready and willing to recommend him to mercy."

"We're going to agree."

"That's good hearing. You agree to a verdict of guilty, coupled with a recommendation to mercy?"

"I don't do nothing of the kind."

"Then what do you agree to?"

"I agree to a verdict of not guilty-that's what I agree to."

"Then, in that case, we're likely to disagree. You can hardly expect eleven men to go against the weight of evidence for the sake of agreeing with you."

"There's no hurry that I knows on. We'll wait a bit. I have heard of juries being locked up for eight-and-forty hours. I daresay before that time some of you'll have changed your minds. Seems to me that there's three or four already that can change their minds as easy as winking." He began, with a certain amount of ostentation, to untie the string which bound his brown paper parcel. "I'm getting peckish. If you don't mind, Mr. Foreman, we'll talk things over while I'm eating."

The unfolding of the paper revealed the fact that it contained a comfortable number of succulent-looking sandwiches. The eleven eyed them-and their owner-sourly. Carefully taking the top one of the heap between his finger and his thumb Mr. Longsett took a bite at it. Seldom has the process of attacking a sandwich had a more attentive audience.

"I say, Jacob," observed Mr. Timmins, "aren't you going to give me one?"

"What, give you the food from between my own lips! Not if I know it. We may be here till this time to-morrow. I've got to think of myself, Mr. Timmins."

"I'm not going to stop here till this time to-morrow, Jacob Longsett!"

As he spoke old Parkes banged his fist upon the table.

"All right, George Parkes, nobody asked you to, so far as I know. Seems to me you're uncommon keen to send the lad to gaol."

"I don't wish the lad no harm."

"Seems to me as how you do."

"I say I don't!"

Mr. Parkes punctuated each of his remarks with a bang upon the board.

"Then why don't you do what you've sworn to do, and bring him in not guilty along of me?"

"I don't care what I brings him in. It don't make no odds to me. It ain't none of my affair. I've got my own business to 'tend to, and when a man's got to my years he don't care to meddle in no one else's. I'm willing to bring him in not guilty along of you, Jacob Longsett."

"That's more like it. If there was more like you and me, George Parkes, we'd soon be outside of this."

Captain Rudd, who had listened to this short dialogue without evincing any signs of approbation, once more endeavoured to urge the foreman to action.

"Don't you think, Mr. Foreman, that the time has arrived for you to communicate the fact of our disagreement to the court?"

Mr. Longsett made haste to differ.

"Excuse me, Mr. Foreman, but, if Captain Rudd will allow me, I don't think it has. We haven't been here hardly any time. There's no hurry, so long as we're doing our duty. I daresay we'll all agree yet before we've finished. All we want is a little patience."

"And something to eat," said Mr. Timmins.

"Then do you mean to say," exclaimed Mr. Longsett, as he commenced upon another sandwich, "that you'd send a young lad to gaol, and blast his good name for ever, just because you're hungry?"

"May I be permitted to make a remark?" The inquiry came from Mr. Tyler. He was holding his handkerchief to his ear; his general expression was one of suffering. "Considering how little of the evidence I really heard I don't wish it to be supposed that I have any objection to a verdict of not guilty. And I may add that not only is my earache driving me nearly mad, but my health, as a whole, as some of you know, is bad, and I am easily exhausted. Had I supposed that any of this sort of thing would have taken place I should have procured a medical certificate excusing me. I appeal to gentlemen to arrive as rapidly as possible at a decision, which will enable me to obtain measures of relief."