The Club of Queer Trades | Page 2

Basil; not because he was in the
least unsociable, for if a man out of the street had walked into his
rooms he would have kept him talking till morning. Few people knew
him, because, like all poets, he could do without them; he welcomed a
human face as he might welcome a sudden blend of colour in a sunset;
but he no more felt the need of going out to parties than he felt the need
of altering the sunset clouds. He lived in a queer and comfortable garret
in the roofs of Lambeth. He was surrounded by a chaos of things that
were in odd contrast to the slums around him; old fantastic books,
swords, armour--the whole dust-hole of romanticism. But his face,
amid all these quixotic relics, appeared curiously keen and modern--a
powerful, legal face. And no one but I knew who he was.
Long ago as it is, everyone remembers the terrible and grotesque scene
that occurred in--, when one of the most acute and forcible of the
English judges suddenly went mad on the bench. I had my own view of
that occurrence; but about the facts themselves there is no question at
all. For some months, indeed for some years, people had detected
something curious in the judge's conduct. He seemed to have lost
interest in the law, in which he had been beyond expression brilliant
and terrible as a K.C., and to be occupied in giving personal and moral
advice to the people concerned. He talked more like a priest or a doctor,
and a very outspoken one at that. The first thrill was probably given
when he said to a man who had attempted a crime of passion: "I
sentence you to three years imprisonment, under the firm, and solemn,
and God-given conviction, that what you require is three months at the
seaside." He accused criminals from the bench, not so much of their
obvious legal crimes, but of things that had never been heard of in a
court of justice, monstrous egoism, lack of humour, and morbidity
deliberately encouraged. Things came to a head in that celebrated
diamond case in which the Prime Minister himself, that brilliant

patrician, had to come forward, gracefully and reluctantly, to give
evidence against his valet. After the detailed life of the household had
been thoroughly exhibited, the judge requested the Premier again to
step forward, which he did with quiet dignity. The judge then said, in a
sudden, grating voice: "Get a new soul. That thing's not fit for a dog.
Get a new soul." All this, of course, in the eyes of the sagacious, was
premonitory of that melancholy and farcical day when his wits actually
deserted him in open court. It was a libel case between two very
eminent and powerful financiers, against both of whom charges of
considerable defalcation were brought. The case was long and complex;
the advocates were long and eloquent; but at last, after weeks of work
and rhetoric, the time came for the great judge to give a summing-up;
and one of his celebrated masterpieces of lucidity and pulverizing logic
was eagerly looked for. He had spoken very little during the prolonged
affair, and he looked sad and lowering at the end of it. He was silent for
a few moments, and then burst into a stentorian song. His remarks (as
reported) were as follows:
"O Rowty-owty tiddly-owty Tiddly-owty tiddly-owty Highty-ighty
tiddly-ighty Tiddly-ighty ow."
He then retired from public life and took the garret in Lambeth.
I was sitting there one evening, about six o'clock, over a glass of that
gorgeous Burgundy which he kept behind a pile of black-letter folios;
he was striding about the room, fingering, after a habit of his, one of
the great swords in his collection; the red glare of the strong fire struck
his square features and his fierce grey hair; his blue eyes were even
unusually full of dreams, and he had opened his mouth to speak
dreamily, when the door was flung open, and a pale, fiery man, with
red hair and a huge furred overcoat, swung himself panting into the
room.
"Sorry to bother you, Basil," he gasped. "I took a liberty--made an
appointment here with a man--a client--in five minutes--I beg your
pardon, sir," and he gave me a bow of apology.
Basil smiled at me. "You didn't know," he said, "that I had a practical

brother. This is Rupert Grant, Esquire, who can and does all there is to
be done. Just as I was a failure at one thing, he is a success at
everything. I remember him as a journalist, a house-agent, a naturalist,
an inventor, a publisher, a schoolmaster, a--what are you now, Rupert?"
"I am and have been for some time," said Rupert, with some