England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Lawyers -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Young men -- Fiction
Thus Henry to Arthur--with the "heavy brief" between them on the table.
Perhaps Henry's surprise and enthusiasm had run away with him a little;
or perhaps he had wanted to make quite sure of lassoing Arthur back. At
any rate, had the brief been Norton Ward's, he would hardly have called
it "heavy"--satisfactory and, indeed, imposing as the fee appeared in
Arthur's eyes. Nor was the case what would generally be known as a
"heavy" one; no great commercial transaction was involved, no
half-a-million or so of money depended on it. None the less, it already
displayed a fair bulk of papers--a voluminous correspondence--and
possessed, as Arthur was soon to discover, great potentialities of
further growth. A very grain of mustard seed for that! It was destined,
as luck would have it (the lawyers' luck, not the clients'), to a
notable career; it engaged the attention of no less than ten of His
Majesty's Judges. It had already been before Pretyman, J., in chambers.
Naresby, J., was to try it (if a glance into the future be allowable).
The Court of Appeal was to send it back for a new trial. The Lord Chief
Justice was to take it to himself. Again the Court of Appeal was to
figure, disagreeing with the judgment pronounced by the Lord Chief
Justice on the findings of the jury. And, at last, four noble and
learned Lords were to upset the Court of Appeal, and restore the
judgment of the Lord Chief Justice--a decision which, at all events, was
final, though Arthur, whose feelings were by that time deeply engaged,
never pretended to consider it right. And then, when the case was
disposed of for good and all, no longer _sub judicibus_ (the plural is
obviously demanded), the newspapers took a turn at it with those
ironical comments with which their ignorance is rashly prone to assail
the mysteries of the Law.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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