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‘Eh?–Oh, certainly–certainly!’ Sir Felix drew his spectacle case from his waistcoat pocket and laid it on the table; took the paper handed to him, and slipped it methodically beneath the sheet of agenda; resumed the business of extracting his spectacles, adjusted them, and gravely opened business.

He had it all to himself. For me, as I, too, received the paper of supplementary cases, my first thought was of simple astonishment at the length of the list. Then my gaze stiffened upon certain names, and by degrees as I recognised them, my whole body grew rigid in my chair. Samuel Sleeman–this was the Superintendent’s name–appellant against Isaac Adamson, drunk and disorderly; Ditto against Duncan McPhae, drunk and disorderly; Ditto against Henry James Walters, drunk and disorderly; Ditto against Selina Mary Wilkins, drunk on licensed premises; Ditto against Mary Curtis, drunk on licensed premises; Ditto against Solomon Tregaskis, drunk on highway. . . . There were no less than twenty-four names on the list; and each was the name of a retainer or pensioner of Sir Felix–those aged Arcadians of Kirris-vean.

I glanced along the table and winced as I met Sir Felix’s eyes. He was inclining towards me. ‘Five shillings and costs will meet this case, eh?’ he was asking. I nodded, though without a notion of what case we were hearing. (It turned out to be one of cattle-straying, so no great harm was done.) Beyond him I saw Lord Rattley covering an infernally wicked grin with his arched palm; beyond Lord Rattley two estimable magistrates staring at that fatal supplementary paper as though they had dined and this was a bill they found themselves wholly unable to meet.

Sir Felix from time to time finds his awards of justice gently disputed. No one disputed them to-day. Lord Rattley, whose language is younger than his years, declared afterwards–between explosions of indecent mirth–that we left the floor to the old man, and he waltzed. He fined three parents for not sending their children to school, made out an attendance order upon another, mulcted a youth in five shillings for riding a bicycle without a light, charged a navvy ten shillings and costs for use of indelicate language (total, seventeen and sixpence), and threatened, but did not punish, a farmer with imprisonment for working a horse ‘when,’ as the charge put it ambiguously, ‘in an unfit state.’ He wound up by transferring an alehouse licence, still in his stride, beamed around and observed ‘That concludes our business, I think–eh, Mr Clerk?’

‘Supplementary cases, y’r Worship,’ murmured the Clerk. ‘If I may remind–paper handed to y’r Worship–‘

‘Eh? Yes, to be sure–‘

‘Number of cases, drunk and disorderly: arising–as I understand–out of Regatta held yesterday at Kirris-vean.’

The Superintendent arose. He is an amazingly tall man, and it seemed to me that he took an amazingly long time in arising to his full height.

‘Impossible to accommodate them all in the cells, y’r Worship. If I may say so, the police were hard worked all night. Mercifully’–the Superintendent laid stress on the word, and I shall always, when I think of it, remember to thank him–‘the most of ’em were blind. We laid ’em out on the floor of the charge-room, and with scarcely an exception, as I am credibly informed, they’ve come to, more or less.’

‘Kirris-vean?’ I saw Sir Felix’s hands grip the arms of his chair. Then he put them out and fumbled with his papers. Lord Rattley obligingly pushed forward his copy of the list.

‘Shall I have the defendants brought into Court at once?’ asked the Superintendent. ‘The constables tell me that they are–er–mostly, by this time, in a condition to understand, for all practical purposes, the meaning of an oath.’

Sir Felix has–as I have hinted–his foibles. But he is an English gentleman and a man of courage. He gasped, waved a hand, and sat up firmly.