by Henry Cecil
‘But,’ said Roger, ‘one has to start some time. Every professional man has to have his first case, whether it’s a doctor, accountant or a barrister.’
‘Yes,’ said Henry, ‘that’s true enough, but all professional men, except barristers, have had practical experience first. If a barrister couldn’t address the Court until he’s had, say, a year as a pupil, that’d be reasonable. Jolly good experience for you yesterday, but what about the poor client?’
‘I hope he wasn’t there,’ said Roger.
‘Of course,’ said Henry, ‘Peter ought to have been doing it, but he wouldn’t really have been any better than you. Worse, probably. He’d have talked nonsense; you only said nothing. Neither of you ought to have been allowed to do it, but there you are, my dear fellow, they will do these things, they will do these things.’
‘Was I what you call “devilling”?’ asked Roger.
‘Well,’ said Henry, ‘if looking unhappy and saying nothing can be called devilling, you were.’
‘I suppose,’ said Roger, ‘that that’s what Gilbert was referring to when he said:
“Pocket a fee with a grin on your face
"When you haven’t been there to attend to the case.”’
‘Yes,’ said Henry, ‘but it isn’t entirely fair to the Bar to put it just like that. A chap can’t be in two places at once and he can’t tell when he first accepts a brief in a case that it’s going to clash with any other. So there are times when he’s got to get help from someone else. All I say is that pupils shouldn’t be allowed to give it. Your case is certainly an extreme one and I don’t suppose it has happened before or will happen again, but the principle is just the same. No offence to you, but during the whole of your year you won’t be capable of handling a defended case in the High Court efficiently, even if you’ve read it thoroughly.’
‘Then why didn’t Grimes ask you to help him?’ asked Roger.
‘Well,’ said Henry, ‘that could be a long story, but I’ll make it a short one. In a nutshell, I’ve got too big for my boots and I won’t devil a brief unless I do the whole thing, or at any rate get half the fee.’
‘Look,’ said Roger, ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but you tell me an awful lot. How am I to know you’re right?’
‘Good for you,’ said Henry. ‘You can’t know. And you’re quite right to ask. Go on asking. Don’t take anything for granted, not even Grimeyboy. In a month or two you’ll think everything he says and does is right.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘It doesn’t matter whether it is or it isn’t, you’ll think it is. Almost every pupil swears by his master. And it’s often quite a long time before he realizes that his written work was bad, that he was only a very moderate lawyer and a poor advocate. I’m not saying any of that about Grimeyboy. It wouldn’t in fact be true. But the point is, you must judge for yourself. Ask “why” the whole time. Oh, hullo, Peter. How’s the Old Bailey? You know that Thursby had to devil for you yesterday?’
‘Thanks very much,’ said Peter. ‘I’ll give you half my fee. Quite a good assault case, as a matter of fact. I’d have been sorry to have missed that. Oh, and there’s a good one in the Court of Criminal Appeal tomorrow, I’m told.’
‘D’you think I could go?’ asked Roger.
‘You certainly could,’ said Henry, ‘and if you want to become like Peter, I should. But if you’re wise you’ll get on with your work here. Popping off to the Old Bailey or the Court of Criminal Appeal to get a cheap thrill won’t teach you anything.’
‘I may decide to go to the Criminal Bar,’ said Peter.
‘If I were you, I should,’ said Henry. ‘Now I must go and work for once.’
Henry went to his room and Roger started to open a set of papers.
‘Don’t feel much like work this morning,’ said Peter. ‘Had a bit of a night last night. What are you reading?’
‘I haven’t started really,’ said Roger. ‘This is something called Biggs and Pieman.’
‘Oh, that’s quite amusing. Pieman’s the MP, you know. It’ll never come into Court. It’s a sort of woman scorned action. Neither side can afford to fight it. Wish they would. It’d be great fun. She’s a very attractive woman. I saw her in the clerk’s room before she saw Grimeyboy.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘Well – it’s a claim for money lent. To judge from the letters, Mrs Biggs and Mr Pieman used to see more of one another than they ought to have done – seeing that there was a Mr Biggs. Well, Pieman apparently needed money to start him on his political career and Mrs B provided it. How much of it was Mr B’s I don’t know. Later on when the good ship Pieman was firmly launched he broke it off with Mrs B. She was very angry and asked for her money back. He wouldn’t pay. So she sued him. He says it’s a gift.’
‘When is it coming on for trial?’
‘I tell you, it isn’t. Mr B doesn’t know anything about it, but if it came into Court he soon would. There are things in those letters most husbands wouldn’t approve of. You read them. They’re grand fun. She wanted to know if the action could be heard in camera. Of course it couldn’t. So it’s only a question of who’ll give in first. Wouldn’t do Pieman any good for his constituency to know that he’d been financed by another man’s wife. Wouldn’t do her any good for her husband to know she’s been so very kind to Mr P. Now, what else is there?’
Peter looked casually at the briefs lying on the table. He picked up one, opened it and read a little, put it back in its red tape and sighed.
‘How can anyone be expected to get up any enthusiasm for drawing pins? Consignments of drawing pins. I ask you.’
He picked up another set of papers.
‘This isn’t much better,’ he said. ‘It’s about wallpaper. I wish he’d have a breach of promise or an enticement action. He hardly ever does a divorce case. Had one the other day, though. Not bad at all. Cruelty case.’
He paused for a moment, trying to recollect some of the more lurid details.
‘D’you know, he used to tie her up to a chair and then make faces at her. Now, what would he get out of that?’
‘I can’t think,’ said Roger, but he said it in a tone which caused Peter to say: ‘Sorry, old boy. Don’t want to interrupt. Think I’ll go down to the Old Bailey. Where’s Charles?’
‘I haven’t seen him this morning.’
‘Oh, of course. He’s got a judgment summons somewhere.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Oh – a summons for debt, you know. I’m not quite sure actually, but you get an Order sending them to prison if they don’t pay, or something.’
‘I thought that was abolished years ago.’
‘So did I, old boy, but it’s something like that. You ask Henry. He knows all the answers. Pity he’s got no guts. Might have done well. Well, so long, old boy. May not see you again till tomorrow. Depends what they’ve on at the Old Bailey. I’ll take my robes. Might get a docker.’
‘A what?’
‘Dock brief. You know, surely. I did before I was called. Any prisoner who’s got a couple of guineas and the clerk’s fee can choose any counsel sitting in Court. So if you just go and sit there you may get a brief. Look hard at the prisoner and hope you hypnotize him into choosing you. Henry’s got a good story about dock briefs.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Well, I might as well tell you first. Don’t often get in in front of Henry. Well, there was an old lag down at the Bailey. He’d been there dozens of times, knew the ropes. Well, he was up one day for something and decided he’d like to have counsel to defend him. So he brought out his money and they took him up into the dock before the Recorder.
‘“Can I have a dock brief, please, my Lord?” he asked, very politely.
‘“Has he two pounds four shillings and sixpence?” asked the Recorder. The clerk informed the Recorder that the money was there.
‘“Very well,” said the Recorder. “Choose whom you like,” and he pointed to the two rows
of counsel sitting in Court. Some were very young, like me, and couldn’t have had any experience. Others were very old and moth-eaten. At least one had a hearing aid.
‘“What!” said the old lag in horror. “One of those?”
‘The Recorder looked at the two rows of counsel and then said rather mournfully: “Yes, I’m afraid so. That’s all we have in stock at the moment.”’
‘Well,’ said Roger, ‘I wish you luck. But if you did get a brief, would you know what to do with it?’
‘As much as anyone else, old boy. Just get up and spout to the jury. Can’t come to much harm. They’re all guilty. So it doesn’t really matter what happens. Feather in your cap if you get them off. Inevitable if they’re convicted.’
‘I wonder they bother to try them,’ said Roger.
‘Must go through the motions, old boy,’ said Peter. ‘And anyway, where would the legal profession be? Justice must not only be done but must appear to be done and, may I add, must be paid for being done. Bye, bye, old boy. Hope you like Mrs Biggs’ letters. Some of them are a bit hot. I tried a bit on one of my girlfriends. Went down very well. Breach of copyright, I suppose. But who cares? So long.’
For the next hour Roger was left alone and he devoted himself to the study of Biggs (married woman) v Pieman. He found it enthralling – not so much in the way that Peter did, but because he felt so important to be looking into the intimate affairs of other people and, in particular, people of some prominence. Here he was, only just called to the Bar, and he knew things about a Member of Parliament which hardly anyone else knew. And then, supposing by one of those extraordinary coincidences that do take place, he happened to meet Mr Biggs! He might be a member of his uncle’s club. And suppose his uncle introduced him and they had dinner together. He’d have to listen while Biggs extolled the virtues of his wife.
‘A sweet little woman, though I say it myself who shouldn’t,’ Mr Biggs might say.
‘I don’t know whether you should or you shouldn’t,’ Roger would think to himself. ‘Fortunately you didn’t say good little woman.’ Mr Biggs would go on: ‘Pretty as a picture – but I’d trust her with anyone. It’s not everyone who can say that, these days.’
‘Indeed not,’ Roger would think. ‘Not with accuracy, anyway.’
At that moment, Mr Grimes came into the pupils’ room.
‘How are ye, my dear fellow? What are ye looking at? Oh, dear, dear, dear. That kettle of fish. Well, the fellows will be fellows and the girls will be girls. They will do these things, they will do these things.’
‘D’you think the action will come into Court?’
‘Oh, dear me no, my dear fellow. We can’t have that, can we? Dear, dear, dear. Our husband doesn’t know of our goings on and we don’t want him to. We don’t want him to, my dear fellow.’
‘Then why did she bring the action?’
‘Just a try on, my dear fellow, just a try on. He might have paid up. You can never tell, my dear fellow, you can never tell. There’s only one motto I know of that’s any good. “Never go to law,” my dear fellow, “never go to law”. And then where should we be, my dear fellow? We shouldn’t, should we? So it’s just as well they will do these things, isn’t it, my dear fellow, just as well.’
Then Alec came in.
‘Can you see Mr Wince, sir? He was just passing and wanted to have a word with you about Cooling and Mallet.’
Mr Grimes immediately left the pupils’ room. It was not far enough to run but he went as fast as he could. Roger imagined that he would be pretty good at getting to the bathroom first in a boarding house.
‘And how’s Mr Wince?’ Roger heard him say. ‘How’s Mr Wince today? Come along in, my dear fellow, come along in,’ and then Mr Grimes’ door closed and Roger heard no more. He wondered what Mr Wince wanted. What was Cooling and Mallet about? He looked on his table. What a piece of luck. There it was. He quickly tied up the bundle he had been reading and opened Cooling and Mallet. At that moment Alec came in.
‘Mr Grimes wants these, I’m afraid, sir,’ he said and took them away.
Roger went back to the sins of Mr Pieman and Mrs Biggs. Even at his age he found it a little sad to see how the attitude between men and women can change. The letters, which in the early correspondence started and ended so very, very affectionately, full of all the foolish-looking but (to them) sweet sounding endearments of lovers, gradually cooled off. ‘My dearest, sweetest turnip, how I adore you’ became ‘Dear Mr Pieman, if I do not receive a cheque by return I shall place the matter in other hands.’ Is it really possible that I could ever hate the sight of Joy or Sally as undoubtedly Mr Pieman now hates the sight of Mrs Biggs? Perhaps it only happens, he thought, when the relationship has been that of husband and wife, or worse. At twenty-one these things are a little difficult to understand.
Roger had an hour more with Mr Pieman and Mrs Biggs when Charles returned. The Court he had attended was some way away, but he was still hot and flushed.
‘Hullo,’ said Roger. ‘How did you get on? I hear you’ve been doing a judgment something or other. I wish you’d tell me about it.’
‘I wish you’d asked me that yesterday. Then I might have had to look it up. As it is, I have lost my one and only client.’
‘I’m so sorry. What happened?’ asked Roger sympathetically.
‘I’d learned the ruddy thing by heart. There wasn’t a thing I didn’t know.’ He broke off. ‘It really is too bad.’
‘Do tell me, unless you’d rather not.’
‘I think I’d like to get it off my chest. I was doing a js – a judgment summons. That’s an application to send to prison a person who hasn’t paid a judgment debt, but you can only succeed if you can prove he has had the means to pay the debt or at any rate, part of it since the judgment. The debtor has to attend and my job was to cross-examine him for all I was worth to show that he could have paid. I went to the Court with my client and I told him the sort of questions I was going to ask and he seemed very impressed. “That’ll shake him,” he said several times. I was really feeling confident. And what d’you think happened? The case was called on and the chap didn’t turn up. Well, that was bad enough, but it was after that that the trouble really began. After all, I can’t know everything, can I, and I had read that brief. If the chap had been there I’d have knocked him to bits. But he wasn’t. “Well,” said the judge, “what do you want me to do?” Well, I ought to have looked it up, I suppose, but I hadn’t. I’d no idea what I wanted him to do. Fortunately my client knew more than I did. “Have him fined,” he whispered. “Would Your Honour fine him?” I said.
‘“Your client wants his money, I suppose,” said the judge. “What good will fining him do?”
‘I had no idea. Again my client prompted me. “If he doesn’t pay, he goes to prison.”
‘I repeated this to the judge.
‘“But surely that isn’t right,” said the judge. “You’ve got to prove means before he goes to prison.”
‘“Not in the case of a fine,” whispered my client.
‘“Not in the case of a fine, Your Honour,” I repeated, like the good parrot I had become.
‘I was already beginning to feel extremely small, particularly after the exhibition I’d given to my client in the train as to what I was going to do with this judgment debtor. Here I was, just repeating what he was feeding me with. But even that wouldn’t have been so bad if it had been right.
‘“Nonsense,” said the judge. “You can’t commit a man for non-payment of a fine unless you can prove he has the means to pay. Do you know what is meant by an argument in a circle?”
‘“I think so, Your Honour,” I said.
‘“A good example,” said the judge, “is the law relating to judgment summonses. If a judgment debt isn’t paid, the debtor can only be sent to prison if you can prove he has had the means to pay. Usually you can’t do that unless he’s present to be cross-examined about his means. If he doesn’t obey the summons to appear, he can be
fined, but you can’t do anything about the fine unless you can prove he has the means to pay it. But he doesn’t come. So you can’t ask him questions or prove anything. So you’re back where you started. Of course, if he’s got any goods on which distress can be levied, it’s different, but then you’d have tried execution and wouldn’t have bothered about a judgment summons in that case.”
‘Meantime I’m standing there, getting red in the face.
‘“Well, Mr Hepplewhite, what would you like me to do?”
‘Someone in the row – a barrister or solicitor – whispered to me. “Ask for a 271.”
‘Again I did as suggested.
‘“What on earth’s that?” asked the judge.
‘Well, what could I say? The chap next to me might have been pulling my leg. I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything. So I said so. You can hardly blame the judge.
‘“Really,” he said. “This is too bad. Summons dismissed.”
‘My client said something to me about looking up the rules another time and added that he wouldn’t be coming back my way. On the way home I started looking it up – and, blow me, if there isn’t a thing called a 271. The chap was quite right. It was the only thing to do. Even the judge didn’t know it. It’s certainly a lesson to look up the rules another time. But it takes it out of you, a thing like that.’
‘It must have been awful,’ said Roger. ‘But you can’t look up everything before you go into Court,’ he went on. ‘How d’you know what to look up?’
‘Well, I suppose,’ said Charles, ‘if you have a judgment summons, you ought to look up the rules which govern them. And I suppose, too, one ought to visualize the possibility of a man not turning up and find out what you can do then. I shan’t forget 271 in a hurry. I feel like writing to the judge about it. After all, he ought to have known it.’
