Volume I Part 7 (1/2)

”With all my heart; but what's _my_ cause?--what do you mean by _my_ cause?”

”It's no time for explanation,” said he, hurrying me along; ”the judges are in chamber,--you'll soon hear all about it.”

He said truly; it was neither the fitting time nor place for much converse, for we had to fight our way through a crowd that was every moment increasing; and it took at least twenty minutes of struggle and combat to get out, my coat being slit up to the collar, and my friend's gown being reduced to something like bell-ropes.

He did n't seem to think much about his damaged costume, but still dragged me along, across a courtyard, up some very filthy stairs, down a dark corridor, then up another flight, and, pa.s.sing into a large ante-room, where a messenger was seated in a kind of gla.s.s cage, he pushed aside a heavy curtain of green baize, and we found ourselves in a court, which, if not crowded like that below, was still sufficiently filled, and by persons of respectable exterior. There was a dead silence as we entered. The three judges were examining their notes, and handing papers back and forward to each other in dumb show. The procureur was picking his teeth with a paper-knife, and the clerk of the court munching a sandwich, which he held in his hat. Vanhoegen, however, brushed forward to a prominent place, and beckoned me to a seat beside him. I had but time to obey, when the clerk, seeing us in our places, bolted down an enormous mouthful, and, with an effort that nearly choked him, cried ont, ”L'affaire de Dodd fils est en audience.” My heart drooped as I heard the words. The ”affaire de Dodd fils” could mean nothing but that confounded duel of which I have already told you. All the misfortune and all the criminality seemed to fall upon us. For at least four times a week I was summoned somewhere or other, now before a civil, now a military auditor; and though I swore repeatedly that I knew nothing about the matter till it was all over, they appeared to think that if I was well tortured, I might make great revelations. They were not quite wrong in their calculations. I would have turned ”approver”

against my father rather than gone on in this fas.h.i.+on. But the difficulty was, I had really nothing to tell. The little I knew had been obtained from others. Lord George had told me so much as I was acquainted with; and, from my old habits of the bench at home, I was well aware that such could not be admitted as evidence.

Still it was their good pleasure to pursue me with warrants and summonses, and there was nothing for it but to appear when and wherever they wanted me.

”Is this confounded affair the cause of my pa.s.sport being detained?”

whispered I to Van.

”Precisely,” said he; ”and if not very dexterously handled, the expense may be enormous.”

I almost lost all self-possession at these words. I had been a mark for legal pillage and robbery from the first moment of my arrival, and it seemed as if they would not suffer me to leave the country while I had a Napoleon remaining. Stung nearly to madness, I resolved to make one desperate effort at rescue, and, like some of those woebegone creatures in our own country who insist on personal appeals to a Chief Justice, I called, ”Monsieur le Prsident--” There, however, my French left me, and, after a terrible struggle to get on, I had to continue my address in the vernacular.

”Who is this man?” asked he, sternly.

”Dodd pre, Monsieur le Prsident,” interposed my lawyer, who seemed most eager to save me from the consequences of my rashness.

”Ah! he is Dodd pre,” said the president, solemnly; and now he and his two colleagues adjusted their spectacles, and gazed at me long and attentively; in fact, with such earnestness did they stare that I began to feel my character of Dodd pre was rather an imposing kind of performance. ”Enfin,” said the president, with a faint sigh, as though the reasoning process had been rather a fatiguing one,--”enfin! Dodd pre is the father of Dodd fils, the respondent.”

Vanhoegen bowed submissive a.s.sent, and muttered, as I thought, some little flattery about the judicial acuteness and perspicuity.

”Let him be sworn,” said the president; and accordingly I held up my hand, while the clerk recited something with a humdrum rapidity that I guessed must mean an oath.

”You are called Dodd pre?” said the Attorney-General, addressing me.

”I find I am so called here, but I never was so before,” said I, tartly.

”He means that the appellation is not usual in his own country,” said one of the judges,--a small, red-eyed man, with pock-marks.

”Put it down,” observed the president, gravely. ”The witness informs us that he is only called Dodd.”

”Kenny James Dodd, Monsieur,” cried I, interrupting.

”Dodd--dit Kenny James,” dictated the small judge; and the amanuensis took it down.

”And you swear you are the father of Dodd fils?” asked the president.

I suppose that the adage of a wise child knowing his own father cuts both ways; but I answered boldly, that I 'd swear to the best of my belief,--a reservation, however, that excited a discussion of three-quarters of an hour, the point being at last ruled in my favor.

I am bound to say that there was a great deal of legal learning displayed in the controversy,--a vast variety of authorities cited, from King David downwards; and although at one time matters seemed going against me, the red-eyed man turned the balance in my favor, and it was agreed that I was the father of my own son. If I knew but all, it might have been better for me there had been a hitch in the case. But I am antic.i.p.ating.

There now arose another dispute, on a point of law, I believe, and which was, what degree of responsibility--there were fourteen degrees, it seems, in the Pandects--I stood in as regarded the present suit. From the turn the debate took, I began to suspect we might all of us have to plead to our responsibilities in the other world ere it could be finished; but the red-eyed man, who seemed the shrewdest of them all, cut the matter short by proposing that I should be invited--that's the phrase--to say so much as I pleased in the question before the Court.

”Yes, yes,” a.s.sented the president. ”Let him relate the affair.” And the whole bar and the audience seemed to reecho the words.