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‘Very sorry, gentlemen; very sorry–most inexplicable,’ stuttered Sir Felix, who suffers from a slight impediment of the speech when hurried. ‘Servants at home seemed–conspired–detain me. Jukes’– Jukes is Sir Felix’s butler, an aged retainer of the best pattern– ‘Jukes would have it, weather too inclement. Poof! I am not too old, I hope, to stand a few drops of rain. Next he brings word that Adamson’–Adamson is (or was) Sir Felix’s trusted coachman– ‘is indisposed and unable to drive me. “Then I’ll have Walters,” said I, losing my temper, “or I’ll drive myself.” Jukes must be failing: and so must Walters be, for that matter. We might have arrived ten minutes ago, but he drove execrably.’

‘Reminds me–‘ began Lord Rattley, when Sir Felix–who is ever nervous of that nobleman’s reminiscences, and had by this time divested himself of his Inverness cape, turned to the Clerk and demanded news of a lad discharged at the last Sessions on his own and parents’ recognisances, to be given another chance under the eye of our new Probation Officer.

‘–Of a coachman I once had called Oke–William Oke,’ continued Lord Rattley imperturably. ‘Drunken little sot he was, but understood horses. One night I had out the brougham and drove into Bodmin to mess with the Militia. The old Royal Cornwall Rangers messed at the hotel in those days, in the long room they used for Assemblies. About eleven o’clock I sent for my carriage, and along it came in due course. Well, I dare say at that hour I wasn’t myself in a condition to be critical of Oke’s–‘

Sir Felix pulled out his watch, and asked me what I made the time.

‘Off we drove,’ pursued Lord Rattley, ignoring this hint, ‘and I must have dropped asleep at once. When I awoke the blessed vehicle had come to a standstill. I called to Oke–no answer: so by-and-by I opened the carriage door and stepped out. The horses had slewed themselves in towards the hedge and were cropping peaceably: but no Oke was on the box and still no Oke answered from anywhere when I shouted. He had, as a fact, tumbled clean off the box half a mile astern, and was lying at that moment in the middle of the road. At that hour I had no mind to look for him, so I collected the reins somehow, climbed up in front, and drove myself home. I had a butler then by the name of Ibbetson–a most respectable man, with the face of a Bible Christian minister; and, thought I, on my way up the drive, “I’ll give Ibbetson a small scare.” So coming to the porch, when Ibbetson heard the wheels and cast the door open, I kept my seat like a rock. Pretty well pitch dark it was where I sat behind the lamps. Ibbetson comes down the steps, opens the carriage door and stands aside. After a moment he begins to breathe hard, pops his head into the brougham, then his arm, feels about a bit, and comes forward for a lamp. “My God, Bill!” says Ibbetson, looking up at me in the dark. “What have you done with th’ ould devil?”‘

‘I really think,’ suggested Sir Felix hurriedly, ‘we ought not to keep the Court waiting.’

So in we filed, and the Court rose respectfully to its feet and stood while we took our seats. The Superintendent of Police–an officer new to our Division–gazed at me with a perfectly stolid face across the baize-covered table. Yet somehow it struck me that the atmosphere in Court was not, as usual, merely stuffy, but electrical; that the faces of our old and tried constabulary twitched with some suppressed excitement; and that the Clerk was fidgeting with an attack of nerves.

‘Certain supplementary cases, your Worship,’ said he, taking a small sheaf of papers from the hands of his underling, ‘too late to be included on the charge-sheet issued.’