Page:Henry Northcote (IA henrynorthcote00snairich).pdf/325

 "Well, my father-in-law has been many times on the common jury, but he says this young lawyer beat all he had ever heard. He says it doesn't matter how clever the ordinary lawyer may be, you can always tell when he's putting it on. But this young chap was so quiet and solemn that he simply made you shiver."

"Just a trick."

"They all knew that, yet he made them so that they couldn't help their feelings. My father-in-law says as soon as they retired to the jury-room to find their verdict, old Bill Oaks—you know the old prize-fighter what keeps the Blue Swan at Hackney—who was on the jury, he just spat in the corner and wiped his eyes on his sleeve, and he says, 'Well, mateys, I'd reckon we'd 'ang no more women.'"

"Bill Oaks said that?"

"Those were his words. And it just shows the power that young chap must have had to make a common fellow like old Bill Oaks say a thing like that."

"Some men are born lucky. With a mind of that sort he will have made a fortune in no time. In a year or so he will be keeping his yacht and driving his motor car. It is a funny world when you come to think about it. Here is a chap like me, been a clerk in the Providential for thirty-five years. My hours are nine-thirty till five; I have never once been late, nor had a day off for illness; and my salary per week is thirty-eight and a tizzey, with a pound a week pension at sixty provided I keep up my payments to the fund. I have never done a wrong action as far as I know; I go to church once