Money in the Bank Read Online Free PDF Page B

Mr. Green, or, alternatively, as "Me lud." However, I find your emotion intelligible. Have these references to witness's apparently misspent youth any bearing on the case now before us, Mr. Miller?
    C OUNSEL : I'm shaking him, me lud—showing what a louse he is.
    J UDGE :   Do not use the word "louse," Mr. Miller.
    C OUNSEL : As your ludship pleases. Well, anyway, Stinker, putting aside for the moment the question of your niffiness, wasn't it notorious that you couldn't tell the truth without straining a ligament? What I'm driving at is that this story of yours about the blow or buffet being really a prod or tap is a tissue of lies from soup to nuts. Come on now, come clean, you unspeakable wart.
    J UDGE :    The expression "wart," Air. Miller
     
    There had been quite a lot of this sort of thing, culminating in Counsel requesting the Learned Judge for heaven's sake not to keep interrupting all the time, and His Lordship, ceasing to be urbane, speaking of contempt of court and advising Counsel to lose no time in adopting some other walk in life, for he, His Lordship, could see no future for him at the Bar. And the thought of Myrtle Shoesmith's eyes perusing it, and Myrtle Shoesmith coming to have a long, cosy talk about it, was not an agreeable one.
    He craned his neck out of the window, scanning the horizon, and nearly overbalanced as Ma Balsam's voice spoke unexpectedly behind him. For one awful moment, he had thought that Myrtle had arrived unseen and sneaked up in his rear.
    "When would you be wanting tea, sir?"
    Jeff eyed her wanly. It seemed to him she had got a wrong angle on this interview which confronted him.
    "I very much doubt, Ma, if the question of tea will arise."
    "Young ladies like their cup of tea, sir."
    "True. But I think you are overstressing the social side of this reunion. I have an idea that Miss Shoesmith will be far too busy talking to have leisure for refreshment."
    "I've made some nice rock cakes."
    "Even for nice rock cakes. You might tempt her with my blood, but a sip or two of that, as I see it, will be all that she will be requiring. I may be wrong, but I have an uneasy feeling, Ma, that she has been reading about the Case. You did, I suppose?"
    "Oh, yes, sir."
    "You know, Ma, the whole thing is just one more instance of how one can regret doing something which seemed a good idea at the time. When I beheld this Lionel Green cowering before me in the box, and suddenly realized that he was the Stinker Green who had embittered my early boyhood, it appeared such an obvious course to slip it across him and bathe him in confusion that I didn't hesitate. 'You are on the right lines, J. G. Miller,' I said to myself."
    "Then you knew the gentleman, sir?"
    "Didn't you gather that from the trend of my examination? Yes, we were at school together. He was a couple of years older than me. It was he who secured for me the repulsive nickname of ' Socks,' which I succeeded in living down, thanks to some lissomness on the football field, only in my last two years. 'Socks,' I may mention, was short for 'Bed Socks.' This blot Green spread abroad the foul canard that I wore bed socks at home and always had to sleep with a nightlight because I was afraid of the dark. Well, you know—or possibly with your pure mind you do not know—what hellhounds the young of the English leisured classes are. They were on to it like wolves."
    "Not nice of the young gentleman, sir."
    "Not at all nice. I was too small at the time to biff him in the eye, but I swore a dark oath of vengeance. I can now write that off."
    "I thought the Judge was very nasty to you, sir."
    "Very. I had always supposed that Counsel on these occasions was allowed to say whatever he liked, while the Judge leaned back and chuckled heartily at his ready wit, and it was a rude shock to me when His Lordship kept kicking me in the stomach. Still, these Judges have a great deal of penetration, Ma. Shrewd fellows. You noticed what this one said, about how I