Baboo Jabberjee, B.A Part 12

Here JESSIMINA said that she had of course refused to marry a man who declared that he was already the owner of a dusky spouse, but that, on inquiries from Mr CHUCKERb.u.t.tY RAM, she had made the discovery that my said infant wife had popped off with some juvenile complaint or other three or four years ago.

At this I was rendered completely flabaghast--for, although the allegation was undeniably correct, I had confidently hoped that my friend RAM was unaware of the fact, or would at least have the ordinary mother-wit to refrain from blurting it out! "_Et tu, Brute!_"

But I must make the dismal confession that my friends are mostly a very fat-witted sort of fellows.

_Que faire?_--except to explain that my melancholy bereavement must have entirely slipped off my memory, and that in any case it had no logical connection with the matter in hand.

Then Mrs MANKLETOW inquired, would I, or would I not, marry her illused child? and stated that all she wished for was a plain answer.

I replied that it was a very natural and moderate desire, and I was prepared to gratify it at once by the plain answer of--_Not on any account._

Whereupon Mr SOLOMONS stepped forward and politely handed me a folded paper, and, observing that he thought there was no need to protract the interview, he lifted his hat and went off with the ladies, leaving myself upon a bench endeavouring to get the sense of the official doc.u.ment into my baffled and bewildered n.o.b.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A ROYAL COMMAND FROM THE QUEEN-EMPRESS."]

Eventually, I gathered that it was a Royal command from the Queen-Empress, backed by the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, that I was to enter my appearance in an action at the suit of JEMIMA MANKLETOW for a claim of damages for having breached my promise to marry!

No matter! Pugh! Fiddle-de-dee! Never mind! Who cares?

Having successfully pa.s.sed Exam, and been called to the Bar, I am now an _amicus curiae_, and the friend in Court.

I shall enter my appearance in the forensic costume of wig and gown.

What will be the price of the plaintiff's pleadings _then_, Madams?

XXII

_Mr Jabberjee places himself in the hands of a solicitor--with certain reservations._

I concluded my foregoing instalment, narrating my service of a writ for breaching a promise of marriage, with a spirited outburst of _insouciance_ and devilmaycarefulness.

But such courage of a Dutch evaporated deplorably on closer perusal of the said writ, which contained the peremptory mandate that I was to enter my appearance within the incredibly short notice of eight days, or the judgment would be given in my absence!

Now it was totally out of the question that I was to prepare a long complicated defence, and have the requisite witnesses, and also perfect myself in the customs and etiquettes of Common Law Procedure, all in such a ridiculously brief period; and yet, if I remained _perdu_ with a hidden head, I could not hope for even the minimum of justice, since, heigh-ho! _les absents ont toujours tort_. So that I shed blistering and scalding tears like a spanked child, to find myself confronting such a devil of a deep sea, and my day was dismal and my night a nonent.i.ty, until, by a great piece of potluck, on going up the next morning to the library of my Inn, I espied my young friend HOWARD in the compound, busily employed in a lawn tennis game.

Having partially poured the cat from my bag already into his sympathetic and receptive bosom, I decided to confide to him my hard case in its entirety, and so made him a secret sign that I desired some private confabulations at his earliest conveniency, which he observing, after the termination of the match, came towards the remote bench whereon I was forlornly moping, and sat down kindly by my side.

This young ALLb.u.t.t-INNETT, I am to mention here, had only just missed succeeding in the pa.s.sing of Bar Exam owing to the inveterate malignancy of his stars and lack of a more industrial temperament; but from the coolness of his cheek, and complete man-of-the-worldliness, is a most judicious and tip-top adviser to friends in tight places.

_Experto crede_, for, when he had heard the latest particulars of my shocking _imbroglio_, he promptly gave me the excellent advice that I was to consult a solicitor; strongly recommending a Mr SIDNEY SMARTLE, who was a former schoolmate of his own, and a good thundering chap, and who (he thought) was not so overburdened as yet by legal business that he could not find time for working the oracle on my behalf.

"And look here, JAB," he added (he has sometimes the extreme condescension to address me as an abbreviation), "I'll trot you up to him at once--and I say, A 1 idea! tell him you mean to be your own counsel, and do all the speechifying yourself. Native prince, in brand-new wig and gown, defending himself single-handed from wiles of artful adventuress--why, you'll knock the jury as if with old boots!"

"Alack," said I, sorrowfully; "though I am quite competent to become the stump orator at shortest notice, I do not see how I can enter my first appearance until I have carefully instructed Misters RAM and JALPANYBHOY in the evidence they are to give and leave untold, &c., and a week is too scanty and fugitive a period for such preparations!"

"Nonsense and stuff!" he replies, "you will have a lot more than that, since the week only applies to entering an appearance--which is a mere farcical formality that old SID can perform in your place on his head."

At which I was greatly relieved.

But on arrival at Mr SMARTLE'S office in Chancery Lane, we were disappointed to be informed, by a small, juvenile clerk, that he was absent at Wimbledon on urgent professional affairs, and his return was the unknown quant.i.ty. However, after waiting till close upon the hour of tiffin, he unexpectedly turned up in a suit of knickerbockers, carrying a long, narrow bag full of metal-headed rods, and although rather adolescent than senile in physical appearance I was vastly impressed by the offhanded c.o.c.ksurety of his manner.

My friend HOWARD introduced me, and exhibited my doleful predicament in the sh.e.l.l of a nut, whereupon Mr SMARTLE jauntily p.r.o.nounced it to be the common garden breach of promise, but that we had better all repair to the First Avenue Hotel and lunch, and talk the affair over afterwards.

Which we did in the smoking-room after lunch, with coffee, liqueurs, and cigars, &c., for which I had to pay, as a Tommy Dod, and the odd man out of pocket.

Mr SMARTLE, after listening attentively to my narrative, said that I certainly seemed to him to have let myself into the deuced cavity of a hole by so publicly proclaiming my engagement, but that my status as an oriental foreigner, and the fact I had a.s.serted--viz., that my promise was extorted from me by compulsion and sheer physical funkiness--might pull me through, unless the plaintiff were of superlative loveliness (which, fortunately, is by no means the case).

He added, that we had better engage WITHERINGTON, Q.C., as he was notoriously the crossest examiner at the Common Bar.

But to this I opposed the _sine qua non_ that I am to have the sole control of my case in court, and reap the undivided _kudos_, a.s.suring him that I should be able to cross-examine all witnesses until they could not stand on one leg. From some private motives of his own, he sought to overcome my determination, hinting that, as my calling and election to the Bar were not yet an ancient history, I might not possess sufficient experience; and moreover that, by appearing in barristerial garbage, I should infallibly forfeit the indulgence shown by a judge to ordinary litigants; to which I responded by pointing out that I was a typical Indian in the matter of legal subtlety and ready-made wit, and that, if not capable of conducting my _own_ case, how, then, could I be fit to undertake a logomachy for any third parties? finally, that it is proverbially unnecessary to keep a dog when you are equally proficient in the practice of barking yourself.

Whereupon, silenced by my _a fortiori_ and _reductio ad absurdum_, he gave way, saying that it was my own affair, and, anyhow, there would be plenty of time to consider such a matter, since the plaintiff might not choose to do anything further till after the Long Vacation, and we could easily postpone the hearing of the action until the Midsummer of next year.

I, however, earnestly protested that I did not wish so procrastinated a delay, as I desired to make my forensic _debut_ at the earliest possible moment, and urged him to leave no stone unturned to get the job finished by November at least, suggesting that if we could ascertain the name and address of the judge who was to try the case, I might call upon him, and, in a private and confidential interview, ascertain the extent of his disposition in my favour, and the length of his foot.

To which Mr SMARTLE replied that he could not recommend any such tactics, as I should certainly ascertain the dimensions of the judicial foot in a literal and painful manner.

Now I must conclude with a livelier piece of intelligence: I am now in receipt of the wished-for invitation to visit the ALLb.u.t.t-INNETT family at the elegant mansion (or--to speak Scottishly--"manse") they have hired for a few weeks in the savage and romantic mountains of Ayrs.h.i.+re, N.B.

Mrs A.-I. wrote that there is no shooting attached to the manse, but several aristocratic friends of theirs own moors in the vicinity, and will inevitably invite them and their visitors to sport with them, so that, as she believed I was the keen sportsman, I had better bring my gun.

Alack! I am not the happy possessor of any lethal weapon, but, having since this invitation practised diligently upon tin moving beasts, bottles, and eggs rendered incredibly lively by a jet of steam, I am at last an _au fait_ with a crackshot, and no end of a Nimrod.

I do not think I shall purchase a gun, for there is a young English acquaintance of mine who is the Devil's Own Volunteer, and who will no doubt have the good nature to lend me his rifle for a week or two.

As to costume, my tailor a.s.sures me that it is totally unnecessary to a.s.sume the national raiment of a Scotch, unless I am prepared to stalk after a stag. But why should I be deterred by any cowardly fear from pursuing so const.i.tutionally timid a quadruped? I have therefore commissioned him to manufacture me a petticoat kilt, with a chequered tartan, and other accessories, for when we are going to Rome, it is the mark of politeness to dress in the Romish style.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "WOULD BE GREATLY IMPROVED BY THE SIMPLE ADDITION OF SOME KNEE-CAPS."]

The Caledonian costume is indubitably becoming; but would, I venture humbly to think, be greatly improved by the simple addition of some knee-caps.

XXIII

_Mr Jabberjee delivers his Statement of Defence, and makes his preparations for the North. He allows his patriotic sentiments to get the better of him in a momentary outburst of disloyalty--to which no serious importance need be attached._

My fair plaintiff has not suffered the gra.s.s of inaction to grow upon her feet, having already issued her Statement of Claim, by which she alleges that I proposed marriage on a certain date, and did subsequently, on divers occasions, treat her, in the presence of sundry witnesses, as an affianced, after which I mizzled into obscurity, and on various pretexts did decline, and do still decline, to fulfil my nuptial contract, by which conduct the plaintiff, being grievously afflicted in mind, body, and estate, claims damages to the doleful tune of 1000.

(N.B.--I have thought it advisable here and there to translate the legal phraseology into more comprehensible verbiage.)

Now such a claim is to milk a ram, or _prendre la lune avec les dents_, seeing that I am not a proprietor of even one thousand rupees.

Nevertheless (as I have informed Mr SMARTLE), my progenitor, the Mooktear, will bleed to any reasonable extent of costs out of pocket.