5oo
THE GREEN BAG
factory to himself than it was to Jessel, who, however, treated the matter as a mere trifle not worth fussing about and calmly restarted his argument on a new tack. In this undesirable habit he resembled an eminent predecessor who, on investing some obsolete case on which he was relying with a complexion peculiarly favorable to his argu ment but quite new to the presiding judge, the latter quietly asked him to hand up his volume of reports. After a moment's critical examina tion the judge handed the volume back with the scathing rebuke: "As I thought, Mr. , my memory of thirty years is more accurate than your quotation." • But once on the Bench, Jessel not only dis carded all derogatory methods, but also pounced remorselessly on any too ingenious practitioner who might attempt to resort to them, and brief as was his judicial career, he contrived to leave a reputation unrivaled in the Rolls Court since the days of Sir William Grant. A CHANCERY court is not, as a rule, a very amusing resort, but Vice-chancellor Malins was always able to command a fairly "good house," as he might generally be counted on to show a certain amount of sport under the stimulating attacks of Mr. Glasse and his Hibernian rival, Mr. Napier Higgins. Mr. Glasse, whose countenance recalled that of a vicious old pointer, when not engaged in bandying epithets with Mr. Higgins, applied himself only too successfully to developing the unhappy Vice-chancellor's propensities for making himself ridiculous. Sir Richard, an amiable, loquacious old gentleman, who had bored and buttonholed his Parliamentary chiefs into giving him a judgeship, was cer tainly an easy prey for a bullying counsel. In external aspect dignified enough, he was afflicted with a habit of conversational irrel evancy which might have supplied a mastersubject for the pen of Charles Dickens. While Higgins roared him down like a floundering bull, Glasse plied the even more discomfiting weapons of calculated contempt and imper tinence. The following is a sample of scenes which were then of almost daily occurrence in Sir Richard's court. "That reminds me," the judge would oracularly interpose, fixing his
eyeglass and glancing round the court, "that reminds me of a point I once raised in the House of Commons—" "Really, my lord," Mr. Glasse would bruskly interrupt with a withering sneer, "we have not come here to listen to your lordship's Parlia mentary experiences." Whereat, with an uneasy flush, the Vice-chancellor would mutteringly resume attention. On one occasion I recollect Mr. Glasse so far forgetting himself as to exclaim audibly in response to some sudden discursion from the bench, "D d old woman!" Every one, of course, tittered, and the Vice-chancellor, for once nerving him self for reprisals, bent forward with a scarlet face and the interrogatory, "What was that you said, Mr. Glasse?" But his terrible an tagonist was not to be confounded. Without a moment's hesitation he replied, airily flourish ing his many-colored bandana, "My lord, I will frankly acknowledge that my remark was not intended for your lordship's ears," an explanation which Malins thought it prudent humbly to accept. But in justice be it said that though intimi dated in a fashion by this brace of forensic bruisers, the Vice-chancellor was in his judg ments no respecter of persons, and in the cele brated Rugby School case he administered a rebuke to a right reverend prelate, lately at the head of the Church, which must have been far from comfortable reading if a full report of the proceedings ever came under his notice. Sir Richard's garrulity once cost him rather dear. On arriving unusually late in court he artlessly explained that his unpunctuality was due to his having started for his morning ride without his watch, which he had acciden tally left at home, and in consequence had been beguiled into a prolongation of his amble with the "liver brigade." About an hour after this unnecessary explanation a person pre sented himself at the Vice-chancellor's house in Lowndes Square and informed the butler that he had been sent from the court for Sir Richard's watch. The butler at first was suspicious, but on finding the watch on his master's dressing-table, and thinking that he would be greatly inconvenienced without it, he handed the timepiece, a very valuable one, to the messenger, who promptly hurried off, but not in the direction of Lincoln's Inn.
