"I shall stand by," said Madame Beattie. "If you go too far I shall interfere. So you can go as far as you like." "I do rather want to know what Weedie's at," said Jeff. "But I sha'n't kick him. He doesn't deserve it at one time any more than another, though he has different degrees of making himself offensive." She was ingenuously disappointed. She even reproached him: "You said you were going to do it." "That was in my haste," said Jeffrey. "I can't lick him with a woman standing by. I should feel like a fool." Denny was drawing up at the circus-ground. "Well," said Madame Beattie, "you've disappointed me tremendously. That's all I can say." It was dark now, and though the season was more advanced, Jeffrey could imagine that this was the moment of his arrival that other night, save that he was not now footsore or dull in the mind. But the same dusk of crowding forms lay thickly on the field, and there, he knew, was the stationary car; there were the two figures standing in it, Moore and his interpreter. He could fill out the picture with a perfect accuracy, Moore gesticulating and throwing frenzy into his high-pitched voice, which now came stridently. Madame Beattie breathed out excitement. Nothing so spiced had ever befallen her in Addington. "Is he actually speaking?" she asked, in a hoarse whisper. "They say insects make noises with their hind legs. It's more like that than a voice. Take me round there, Jeffrey." He was quite willing. With a good old pal like this to egg you on, he thought, there actually was some fun left. So he handed her out, and told Denny to wait for them, and they skirted the high board fence to the gap in the back. Madame Beattie, holding up her long dress in one hand and tripping quite nimbly, was clinging to his arm. By the gap they halted for her to recover breath; she drew her hand from Jeff's arm, opened her little bag, took out a bit of powder paper and mechanically rubbed her face. Jeff looked on indulgently. He knew she did not expect to need an enhanced complexion in this obscurity. The act refreshed her, that was all. Weedon, it was easy to note, was battering down tradition. "They talk about their laws," he shrilled. "I am a lawyer, and I tell you it breaks my heart every time I go back to worm-eaten precedent. But I have to do it, because, if I didn't talk that language the judges wouldn't understand me. Do you know what precedent is? It is the opinion of some man a hundred years ago on a case tried a hundred years ago. Do we want that kind of an opinion? No. We want our own opinions on cases that are tried to-day." The warm rapid voice of the interpreter came in here, and Madame Beattie, who was standing apart from Jeffrey, touched his arm. He bent to listen. "The man's a fool," said she. "No," said Jeffrey, "he's not a fool. He knows mighty well what he's saying and how it'll take."