Hard Cash

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The first of these pleas was a mere formal plea, under the statute.

The second raised the very issue at common law the plaintiff wished to
try.

The third made John Compton knit his brows with perplexity. "This is a
very nasty plea," said he to Alfred: "a regular trap. If we join issue on
it we must be defeated; for how can we deny the certificates were in
form; and yet the plaguy thing is not loose enough to be demurred to?
Colls, who drew these pleas for them?"

"Mr. Colvin, sir."

"Make a note to employ him in our next stiff pleading."

Alfred was staggered. He had thought to ride rough-shod over defendant--a
common expectation of plaintiffs; but seldom realised. Lawyers fight
hard. The pleas were taken to Garrow; he said there was but one course,
to demur to No. 3. So the plaintiff "joined issue on all the defendant's
pleas, and as to the last plea the plaintiff said the same was bad in
substance." Defendant rejoined that the same was good in substance, and
thus Hardie _v._ Hardie divided itself into two cases, a question of law
for the judges, and an issue for the mixed tribunal loosely called a
jury. And I need hardly say that should the defendant win either of them
he would gain the cause.

Postponing the history of the legal _question,_ I shall show how Messrs.
Heathfield fought off the _issue,_ and cooled the ardent Alfred and
sickened him of law.

In theory every Englishman has a right to be tried by his peers: but in
fact there are five gentlemen in every court, each of whom has by
precedent the power to refuse him a jury, by simply postponing the trial
term after term, until the death of one of the parties, when the action,
if a personal one, dies too; and, by a singular anomaly of judicial
practice, if a slippery Deft. can't persuade A. or B., judges of the
common law court, to connive at what I venture to call

THE POSTPONEMENT SWINDLE,

he can actually go to C., D., and B., one after another, with his
rejected application, and the previous refusal of the other judges to
delay and baffle justice goes for little or nothing; so that the
postponing swindler has five to one in his favour.

Messrs. Heathfield began this game unluckily. They applied to a judge in
chambers for a month to plead. Mr. Compton opposed in person, and showed
that this was absurd. The judge allowed them only four days to plead.
Issue being joined, Mr. Compton pushed on for trial, and the cause was
set down for the November term. Towards the end of the term Messrs.
Heathfield applied to one of the puisne judges for a postponement, on the
ground that a principal witness could not attend. Application was
supported by the attorney's affidavit, to the effect that Mr. Speers was
in Boulogne, and had written to him to say that he had met with a railway
accident, and feared he could not possibly come to England in less than a
month. A respectable French doctor confirmed this by certificate. Compton
opposed, but the judge would hardly hear him, and postponed the trial as
a matter of course; this carried it over the sittings into next term.
Alfred groaned, but bore it patiently; not so Dr. Sampson: he raged
against secret tribunals: "See how men deteriorate the moment they get
out of the full light of publeecity. What English judge, sitting in the
light of Shorthand, would admit 'Jack swears that Gill says' for legal
evidence. Speers has sworn to no facks. Heathfield has sworn to no facks
but th' existence of Speer's hearsay. They are a couple o' lyres. I'll
bet ye ten pounds t' a shilling Speers is as well as I'm."

Mr. Compton quietly reminded him there was a direct statement--the French
doctor's certificate.

"A medical certificut!" shrieked Sampson, amazed. "Mai--dearr--sirr, a
medical certificut is just an article o' commerce like an attorney's
conscience. Gimme a guinea and I'll get you sworn sick, diseased,
disabled, or dead this minute, whichever you like best."

"Come, doctor, don't fly off: you said you'd bet ten pounds to a shilling
Speers is not an invalid at all. I say done."

"Done."

"How will you find out?"

"How? Why set the thief-takers on um, to be sure."

He wrote off to the prefect of police at Boulogne, and in four days
received an answer headed "Information in the interest of families." The
prefect informed him there had been no railway accident: but that the
Sieur Speers, English subject, had really hurt his leg getting out of a
railway carriage six weeks ago, and had kept his room some days; but he
had been cured some weeks, and going about his business, and made an
excursion to Paris.

On this Compton offered Sampson the shilling. But he declined to take it.
"The lie was self-evident," said he; "and here's a judge wouldn't see't,
and an attorney couldn't. Been all their lives sifting evidence, too. Oh
the darkness of the profissional mind!"

The next term came. Mr. Compton delivered the briefs and fees, subpoenaed
the witnesses, &c., and Alfred came up with a good heart to get his
stigma removed by twelve honest men in the light of day: but first one
case was taken out of its order and put before him, then another, till
term wore near an end. Then Messrs. Heathfield applied to another judge
of the court for a postponement. Mr. Richard Hardie, plaintiff's father,
a most essential witness, was ill at Clare Court. Medical certificate and
letter herewith.

Compton opposed. Now this judge was a keen and honourable lawyer, with a
lofty hatred of all professional tricks. He heard the two attorneys, and
delivered himself to this effect, only of course in better legal phrase:
"I shall make no order. The defendant has been here before on a doubtful
affidavit. You know, Mr. Heathfield, juries in these cases go by the
plaintiff's evidence, and his conduct under cross-examination. And I
think it would not be just nor humane to keep this plaintiff in suspense,
and _civiliter mortuum,_ any longer. You can take out a commission to
examine Richard Hardie."

To this Mr. Compton nailed him, but the commission took time; and while
it was pending, Mr. Heathfield went to another judge with another
disabled witness: Peggy Black. That naive personage was nursing her
deceased sister's children--in an affidavit: and they had
scarlatina--surgeon's certificate to that effect. Compton opposed, and
pointed out the blot. "You don't want the children in the witness-box,"
said he: "and we are not to be robbed of our trial because one of your
witnesses prefer nursing other people's children to facing the
witness-box."

The judge nodded assent. "I make no order," said he.

Mr. Heathfield went out from his presence and sent a message by telegraph
to Peggy Black. "You must have Scar. yourself, and telegraph the same at
once: certificate by post."

The accommodating maiden telegraphed back that she had unfortunately
taken scarlatina of the children: medical certificate to follow by post.
Four judges out of the five were now awake to the move. But Mr.
Heathfield tinkered the hole in his late affidavit with Peggy's telegram,
and slipped down to Westminster to the chief judge of the court, who had
had no opportunity of watching the growth and dissemination of disease
among Deft.'s, witnesses. Compton fought this time by counsel and with a
powerful affidavit. But luck was against him. The judge had risen to go
home: he listened standing; Compton's counsel was feeble; did not feel
the wrong. How could he? Lawyers fatten by delays of justice, as
physicians do by tardy cure. The postponement was granted.

Alfred cursed them all, and his own folly in believing that an alleged
lunatic would be allowed fair play at Westminster, or anywhere else.
Compton took snuff, and Sampson appealed to the press again. He wrote a
long letter exposing with fearless irony the postponement swindle as it
had been worked in Hardie _v._ Hardie: and wound up with this fiery
peroration:

"This Englishman sues not merely for damages, but to recover lost rights
dearer far than money, of which he says he has been unjustly robbed: his
right to walk in daylight on the soil of his native land without being
seized and tied up for life like a nigger or a dog; his footing in
society; a chance to earn his bread; and a place among mankind: ay, among
mankind; for a lunatic is an animal in the law's eye and society's, and
an alleged lunatic is a lunatic till a jury clears him.

I appeal to you, gentlemen, is not such a suitor sacred in all wise and
good men's minds? Is he not defendant as well as plaintiff? Why, his
stake is enormous compared with the nominal defendant's; and, if I know
right from wrong, to postpone his trial a fourth time would be to insult
Divine justice, and trifle with human misery, and shock the common sense
of nations."

The doctor's pen neither clipped the words nor minced the matter, you
see. Reading this the water came into Alfred's eyes. "Ah, staunch
friend," he said, "how few are like you! To the intellectual dwarfs who
conspire with my oppressors, Hardie _v._ Hardie is but a family squabble.
_Parvis omnia parva._" Mr. Compton read it too; and said from the bottom
of his heart, "Heaven defend us from our friends! This is enough to make
the courts decline to try the case at all."

And, indeed, it did not cure the evil: for next term another _malade
affidavitaire_ was set up. Speers to wit. This gentleman deposed to
having come over on purpose to attend the trial; but having inadvertently
stepped aside as far as Wales, he lay there stricken with a mysterious
malady, and had just strength to forward medical certificate. On this the
judge in spite of remonstrance, adjourned Hardie _v._ Hardie to the
summer term. Summer came, the evil day drew nigh: Mr. Heathfield got the
venue changed from Westminster to London, which was the fifth
postponement. At last the cause came on: the parties and witnesses were
all in court, with two whole days before them to try it in.

Dr. Sampson rushed in furious. "There is some deviltry afloat," said he.
"I was in the House of Commons last night, and there I saw the
defendant's counsel earwigging the judge."

"Nonsense," said Mr. Compton, "such suspicions are ridiculous. Do you
think they can talk of nothing but Hardie _v._ Hardie?"

"Mai--dearr sirr--my son met one of Heathfield's clerks at dinner, and he
let out that the trile was not to come off. Put this and that together
now."

"It will come off," said Mr. Compton, "and in five minutes at farthest."

In less than that time the learned judge came in, and before taking his
seat made this extraordinary speech:

"I hear this cause will take three days to try; and we have only two days
before us. It would be inconvenient to leave it unfinished; and I must
proceed on circuit the day after to-morrow. It must be a remanet: no man
can do more than time allows."

Plaintiff's counsel made a feeble remonstrance; then yielded. And the
crier with sonorous voice called on the case of Bread _v._ Cheese, in
which there were pounds at stake, but no principle. Oh, with what zest
they all went into it; being small men escaping from a great thing to a
small one. Never hopped frogs into a ditch with more alacrity. Alfred
left the court and hid himself, and the scalding tears forced their way
down his cheeks at this heartless proceeding: to let all the witnesses
come into court at a vast expense to the parties: and raise the cup of
justice to the lips of the oppressed, and then pretend he knew a trial
would last more than two days, and so shirk it. "I'd have made that a
reason for sitting till midnight" said poor Alfred, "not for prolonging a
poor injured man's agony four mortal months." He then prayed God
earnestly for this great postponer's death as the only event that could
give him back an Englishman's right of being tried by his peers, and so
went down to Oxford broken-hearted.

As for Sampson he was most indignant, and said a public man had no
business with a private ear: and wanted to appeal to the press again: but
the doughty doctor had a gentle but powerful ruler at home, as fiery
houses are best ruled by a gentle hand. Mrs. Sampson requested him to
write no more, but look round for an M. P. to draw these repeated defeats
of justice to the notice of the House. Now there was a Mr. Bite, who had
taken a prominent and honourable part in lunacy questions; headed
committees and so on: this seemed the man. Dr. Sampson sent him a letter
saying there was a flagrant case of a sane man falsely imprisoned, who
had now been near a year applying for a jury, and juggled out of this
constitutional right by arbitrary and unreasonable postponements: would
Mr. Bite give him (Dr. Sampson) ten minutes and no more, when he would
explain the case and leave documentary evidence behind him for Mr. Bite
to test his statement. The philanthropical M. P. replied promptly in
these exact words:

"Mr. Bite presents his compliments to Dr. Sampson to state that it is
impossible for him to go into his case, nor to give him the time he
requests to do so."

Sampson was a little indignant at the man's insolence; but far more at
having been duped by his public assumption of philanthropy. "The little
pragmatical impostor!" he roared. "With what a sense o' relief th' animal
flings off the mask of humanity when there is no easy eclat to be gained
by putting't on." He sent the philanthropical Bite's revelation of his
private self to Alfred, who returned it with this single remark:
_"Homunculi quanti sunt!_"

Dishonest suitors all try to postpone; but they do not gain unmixed good
thereby. These delays give time for more evidence to come in; and this
slow coming and chance evidence is singularly adverse to the unjust
suitor. Of this came a notable example in October next, and made Richard
Hardie determined to precipitate the trial, and even regret he had not
fought it out long ago.

He had just returned from consulting Messrs. Heathfield, and sat down to
a nice little dinner in his apartments (Sackville Street), when a visitor
was announced; and in came the slouching little figure of Mr. Barkington,
_alias_ Noah Skinner.

DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND.

Mr. Hardie suppressed a start, and said nothing. Skinner bowed low with a
mixture of his old cringing way, and a certain sly triumphant leer, so
that his body seemed to say one thing, and his face the opposite. Mr.
Hardie eyed him, and saw that his coat was rusty, and his hat napless:
then Mr. Hardie smelt a beggar, and prepared to parry all attempts upon
his purse.

"I hope I see my old master well," said Skinner coaxingly.

"Pretty well in body, Skinner; thank you."

"I had a deal of trouble to find you, sir. But I heard of the great
lawsuit between Mr. Alfred and you, and I knew Mr. Heathfield was your
solicitor; so I watched at his place day after day: and at last you came.
Oh, I was so pleased when I saw your noble figure; but I wouldn't speak
to you in the street for fear of disgracing you. I'm such a poor little
guy to be addressing a gentleman like you."

Now this sounded well on the surface, but below there was a subtle
something Mr. Hardie did not like at all: but he took the cue, and said,
"My poor Skinner, do you think I would turn up my nose at a faithful old
servant like you? Have a glass of wine with me, and tell me how you have
been getting on." He went behind a screen and opened a door, and soon
returned with a decanter, leaving the door open. Now in the next room
sat, unbeknown to Skinner, a young woman with white eyelashes, sewing
buttons on Mr. Hardie's shirts. That astute gentleman gave her
instructions, and important ones too, with a silent gesture; then
reappeared and filled the bumper high to his faithful servant. They drank
one another's healths with great cordiality, real or apparent. Mr. Hardie
then asked Skinner carelessly, if he could do anything for him. Skinner
said, "Well, sir, I am very poor."

"So am I, between you and me," said Mr. Hardie confidentially; "I don't
mind telling you; those confounded Commissioners of Lunacy wrote to
Alfred's trustees, and I have been forced to replace a loan of five
thousand pounds. That Board always sides with the insane. That crippled
me, and drove me to the Exchange: and now what I had left is all invested
in time-bargains. A month settles my fate: a little fortune, or absolute
beggary."

"You'll be lucky, sir, you'll be lucky," said Skinner cheerfully; "you
have such a long head; not like poor little me; the Exchange soon burnt
my wings. Not a shilling left of the thousand pounds, sir, you were so
good as to give me for my faithful services. But you will give me another
chance, sir, I know; I'll take better care this time." Mr. Hardie shook
his head sorrowfully, and said it was impossible. Skinner eyed him
askant, and remarked quietly, and half aside, "Of course, I _could_ go to
the other party: but I shouldn't like to do that. They would come down
handsome."

"What other party?"

"La, sir, what other party? Why Mrs. Dodd's, or Mr. Alfred's; here's the
trial coming on, you know, and of course if they could get me to go on
the box and tell all I know, or half what I know, why the judge and jury
would say locking Mr. Alfred up for mad was a conspiracy."

Mr. Hardie quaked internally: but he hid it grandly, and once more was a
Spartan gnawed beneath his robe by this little fox. "What," said he
sternly, "after all I and mine have done for you and yours, would you be
so base as to go and sell yourself to my enemies?"

"Never, sir," shouted Skinner zealously: then in a whisper, "Not if
you'll make a bid for me."

"How much do you demand?"

"Only another thousand, sir?"

"A thousand pounds!"

"Why, what is that to you, sir? you are rich enough to buy the eighth
commandment out of the tables of ten per cent.: and then the lawsuit,
Hardies _versus_ Hardies!"

"You have spoken plainly at last," said Mr. Hardie grimly. "This is
extorting money by threats. Do you know that nothing is more criminal,
nor more easy to punish? I can take you before a magistrate, and imprison
you on the instant for this attempt. I will, too."

"Try it," said Skinner coolly. "Where's your witness?"

"Behind that screen."

Peggy came forward directly with a pen in her hand. Skinner was
manifestly startled and disconcerted. "I have taken all your words down,
Mr. Skinner," said Peggy softly; then to her master, "Shall I go for a
policeman, sir?"

Mr. Hardie reflected. "Yes," said he sternly: "there's no other course
with such a lump of treachery and ingratitude as this."

Peggy whipped on her bonnet.

"What a hurry you are in," whined Skinner: "a policeman ought to be the
last argument for old friends to run to." Then, fawning spitefully,
"Don't talk of indicting me, sir," said he; "it makes me shiver: why how
will you look when I up and tell them all how Captain Dodd was took with
apoplexy in our office, and how you nailed fourteen thousand pounds off
his senseless body, and forgot to put them down in your balance-sheet, so
they are not whitewashed off like the rest."

"Any witnesses to all this, Skinner?"

"Yes, sir."

"Who?"

"Well; your own conscience _for one,_" said Skinner.

"He is mad, Peggy," said Mr. Hardie, shrugging his shoulders. He then
looked Skinner full in the face, and said, "Nobody was ever seized with
apoplexy in my office. Nobody ever gave me L. 14,000. And if this is the
probable tale with which you come here to break the law and extort money,
leave my house this instant: and if ever you dare to utter this absurd
and malicious slander, you shall lie within four stone walls, and learn
what it is for a shabby vagabond to come without a witness to his back,
and libel a man of property and honour."

Skinner let him run on in this loud triumphant strain till he had quite
done; then put out a brown skinny finger, and poked him lightly in the
ribs, and said quite quietly, and oh, so drily, with a knowing wink--

"I've--got--The Receipt."

CHAPTER LI

MR. HARDIE collapsed as if he had been a man inflated, and that touch had
punctured him. "Ah!" said he. "Ah!" said Skinner, in a mighty different
tone: insolent triumph to wit.

After a pause, Mr. Hardie made an effort and said contemptuously, "The
receipt (if any) was flung into the dusthole and carried away. Do you
think I have forgotten that?"

"Don't you believe it, sir," was the reply. "While you turned your back
and sacked the money, I said to myself, 'Oho, is that the game?' and
nailed the receipt. What a couple of scoundrels we were! I wouldn't have
her know it for all your money. Come, sir, I see its all right; you will
shell out sooner than be posted."

Here Peggy interposed; "Mr. Skinner, be more considerate; my master is
really poor just now."

"That is no reason why I should be insulted and indicted and trampled
under foot," snarled Skinner all in one breath.

"Show me the receipt and take my last shilling, you ungrateful,
vindictive viper," groaned Mr. Hardie.

"Stuff and nonsense, said Skinner. "I'm not a viper; I'm a man of
business. Find me five hundred pounds; and I'll show you the receipt and
keep dark. But I can't afford to give it you for that, of course."

Skinner triumphed, and made the great man apologise, writhing all the
time, and wishing he was a day labourer with Peggy to wife, and fourteen
honest shillings a week for his income. Having eaten humble pie, he
agreed to meet Skinner next Wednesday at midnight, alone, under a certain
lamp on the North Kensington Road: the interval (four days) he required
to raise money upon his scrip. Skinner bowed himself out, fawning
triumphantly. Mr. Hardie stood in the middle of the room motionless,
scowling darkly. Peggy looked at him, and saw some dark and sinister
resolve forming in his mind: she divined it, as such women can divine.
She laid her hand on his arm, and said softly, "Richard, it's not worth
_that._" He started to find his soul read through his body so clearly. He
trembled.

But it was only for a moment. "His blood be on his own head," he snarled.
"This is not my seeking. He shall learn what it is to drive Richard
Hardie to despair."

"No, no," implored Peggy; "there are other countries beside this: why not
gather all you have, and cross the water? I'll follow you to the world's
end, Richard."

"Mind your own business," said he fiercely.

She made no reply, but went softly and sat down again, and sewed the
buttons on his shirts. Mr. Hardie wrote to Messrs. Heathfield to get
Hardie _v._ Hardie tried as soon as possible.

Meantime came a mental phenomenon: gliding down Sackville Street,
victorious Skinner suddenly stopped, and clenched his hands; and his face
writhed as if he had received a death-wound. In that instant Remorse had
struck him like lightning; and, perhaps, whence comes the lightning. The
sweet face and voice that had smiled on him, and cared for his body, and
cared for his soul, came to his mind, and knocked at his heart and
conscience. He went home miserable with an inward conflict; and it lasted
him all the four days; sometimes Remorse got the better, sometimes
Avarice. He came to the interview still undecided what he should do. But,
meantime, he had gone to a lawyer and made his will, leaving his little
all to Julia Dodd: a bad sign this; looked like compounding with his
awakened conscience.

It was a dark and gusty night. Very few people were about. Skinner waited
a little while, and shivered, for his avarice had postponed the purchase
of a greatcoat until Christmas Day. At last, when the coast seemed clear,
Mr. Hardie emerged from a side street. Skinner put his hand to his bosom.

They met. Mr. Hardie said quietly, "I must ask you, just for form, to
show me you have the Receipt."

"Of course, sir; but not so near, please: no snatching, if I know it."

"You are wonderfully suspicious," said Mr. Hardie, trying to smile.

Skinner looked, and saw by the lamplight he was deadly pale. "Keep your
distance a moment, sir," said he, and, on Mr. Hardie's complying, took
the Receipt out, and held it under the lamp.

Instantly Mr. Hardie drew a life-preserver, and sprang on him with a
savage curse--and uttered a shriek of dismay, for he was met by the long
shiny barrel of a horse-pistol, that Skinner drew from his bosom, and
levelled full in the haggard face that came at him. Mr. Hardie recoiled,
crying, "No! no! for Heaven's sake!"

"What!" cried Skinner, stepping forward and hissing, "do you think I'm
such a fool as to meet a thief unarmed? Come, cash up, or I'll blow you
to atoms."

"No, no, no!" said Mr. Hardie piteously, retreating as Skinner marched on
him with long extended pistol. "Skinner," he stammered, "th-this is n-not
b-b-business."

"Cash up, then; that's business. Fling the five hundred pounds down, and
walk away. Mind it is loaded with two bullets; I'll make a double entry
on your great treacherous carcass."

"It's no use trying to deceive such a man as you," said Mr. Hardie,
playing on his vanity. "I could not get the money before Saturday, and so
I listened to the dictates of despair. Forgive me."

"Then come again Saturday night. Come alone, and I shall bring a man to
see I'm not murdered. And look here, sir, if you don't come to the hour
and do the right thing without any more of these unbusiness-like tricks,
by Heaven, I'll smash you before noon on Monday."