“What is your explanation?” asked Cresswell.

“My explanation, my lord, is that the testatrix had often expressed to me her intention to leave me L5,000, and I wrote the codicil which was destroyed to carry out her wishes.”

Cresswell had warned James early in the case as to the futility of calling witnesses after the two who alone were necessary, but to no purpose; he hurried his client to destruction, and I have never been able to understand his conduct.  The most that can be said for him is that he did not suspect any danger, and took no trouble to avoid incurring it.

It is curious enough that on the morning of the trial we had tried to compromise the matter by offering L10,000.

The refusal of the offer shows how little they thought that any cross-examination could injure their cause.

Hannen said he could not have believed a cross-examination could be conducted in that manner without any knowledge of the facts, and paid me the compliment of saying it was worth at the least L80,000.

CHAPTER XV.

TATTERSALL’S—­BARON MARTIN, HARRY HILL, AND THE OLD FOX IN THE YARD.

Tattersall’s in my time was one of the pleasantest Sunday afternoon lounges in London.  There was a spirit of freedom and social equality pervading the place which only belongs to assemblies where sport is the principal object and pleasure of all.  There was also the absence of irksome workaday drudgery; I think that was, after all, the main cause of its being so delightful a meeting-place to me.

There was, however, another attraction, and that was dear old Baron Martin, one of the most pleasant companions you could meet, no matter whether in the Court of Exchequer or the “old Ring.”  A keen sportsman he was, and a shrewd, common-sense lawyer—­so great a lover of the Turf that it is told of him, and I know it to be true, that once in court a man was pointed out to him bowing with great reverence, and repeating it over and over again until he caught the Baron’s attention.  The Judge, with one pair of spectacles on his forehead and another on his eyes, immediately cried aloud to his marshal, “Custance, the jockey, as I’m alive!” and then the Baron bowed most politely to the man in the crowd, the most famous jockey of his day.

Speaking of Tattersall’s reminds me of many things, amongst them of the way in which, happily, I came to the resolution never to bet on a horse-race.  It was here I learnt the lesson, at a place where generally people learn the opposite, and never forgot it.  No sermon would ever have taught me so much as I learnt there.

Like my oldest and one of my dearest friends on the turf, Lord Falmouth, I never made a bet after the time I speak of.  No one who lives in the world needs any description of the Tattersall’s of to-day.  But the Tattersall’s of my earlier days was not exactly the same thing, although the differences would not be recognizable to persons who have not over-keen recollections.