I don't know about that: but there's one for
the bright and young and another for the middle-aged and sulky.
The police had already let Jimmy down lightly on the charge sheet:
they showed further leniency at the hearing. Even the constable who
faced the Bench with an eye like a damnatory potato contrived to
suggest that he would have left it outside if he could--so
benevolently, so appreciatively he made it twinkle as he gave
evidence. Jimmy tried to take the blame; but the Magistrate, without
relaxing his face, fined him two pounds and mulcted Farrell in five.
He added some scathing remarks upon old men who led their juniors
astray and called themselves Martin Luther when they were nothing of
the sort. I wondered if he knew that he was admonishing a candidate
for County Council honours. I had a notion that he did. His address
lasted half a minute or less, and during it he kept his gaze
implacably fixed on the culprit: but by the working of his under-jaw
and of the muscles below it I seemed to surmise--shall we say--a
certain process of deglutition.
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