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But among the hilarious experiments of that holiday
(which seemed more like a week's holiday than a day's)
one experiment towers supreme, not because it was any sillier
or more successful than the others, but because out of this
particular folly flowed all of the odd events that were to follow.
All the other practical jokes exploded of themselves, and left vacancy;
all the other fictions returned upon themselves, and were finished
like a song. But the string of solid and startling events--
which were to include a hansom cab, a detective, a pistol,
and a marriage licence--were all made primarily possible
by the joke about the High Court of Beacon.
It had originated, not with Innocent Smith, but with Michael Moon. He was
in a strange glow and pressure of spirits, and talked incessantly;
yet he had never been more sarcastic, and even inhuman.
He used his old useless knowledge as a barrister to talk
entertainingly of a tribunal that was a parody on the pompous
anomalies of English law. The High Court of Beacon, he declared,
was a splendid example of our free and sensible constitution.
It had been founded by King John in defiance of the Magna Carta,
and now held absolute power over windmills, wine and spirit licences,
ladies traveling in Turkey, revision of sentences for dog-stealing
and parricide, as well as anything whatever that happened in the town of
Market Bosworth. The whole hundred and nine seneschals of the High Court
of Beacon met once in every four centuries; but in the intervals
(as Mr. Moon explained) the whole powers of the institution were vested
in Mrs. Duke. Tossed about among the rest of the company, however,
the High Court did not retain its historical and legal seriousness,
but was used somewhat unscrupulously in a riot of domestic detail.
If somebody spilt the Worcester Sauce on the tablecloth, he was quite
sure it was a rite without which the sittings and findings of the Court
would be invalid; or if somebody wanted a window to remain shut,
he would suddenly remember that none but the third son of the lord
of the manor of Penge had the right to open it. They even went
to the length of making arrests and conducting criminal inquiries.
The proposed trial of Moses Gould for patriotism was rather
above the heads of the company, especially of the criminal;
but the trial of Inglewood on a charge of photographic libel,
and his triumphant acquittal upon a plea of insanity, were admitted
to be in the best tradition of the Court.
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