Sir Felix from time to time finds his awards of justice gently disputed.  No one disputed them to-day.  Lord Rattley, whose language is younger than his years, declared afterwards—­between explosions of indecent mirth—­that we left the floor to the old man, and he waltzed.  He fined three parents for not sending their children to school, made out an attendance order upon another, mulcted a youth in five shillings for riding a bicycle without a light, charged a navvy ten shillings and costs for use of indelicate language (total, seventeen and sixpence), and threatened, but did not punish, a farmer with imprisonment for working a horse ‘when,’ as the charge put it ambiguously, ‘in an unfit state.’  He wound up by transferring an alehouse licence, still in his stride, beamed around and observed ‘That concludes our business, I think—­eh, Mr Clerk?’

‘Supplementary cases, y’r Worship,’ murmured the Clerk.  ’If I may remind—­paper handed to y’r Worship—­’

‘Eh?  Yes, to be sure—­’

’Number of cases, drunk and disorderly:  arising—­as I understand—­out of Regatta held yesterday at Kirris-vean.’

The Superintendent arose.  He is an amazingly tall man, and it seemed to me that he took an amazingly long time in arising to his full height.

’Impossible to accommodate them all in the cells, y’r Worship.  If I may say so, the police were hard worked all night.  Mercifully’—­the Superintendent laid stress on the word, and I shall always, when I think of it, remember to thank him—­’the most of ’em were blind.  We laid ’em out on the floor of the charge-room, and with scarcely an exception, as I am credibly informed, they’ve come to, more or less.’

‘Kirris-vean?’ I saw Sir Felix’s hands grip the arms of his chair.  Then he put them out and fumbled with his papers.  Lord Rattley obligingly pushed forward his copy of the list.

‘Shall I have the defendants brought into Court at once?’ asked the Superintendent.  ’The constables tell me that they are—­er—­mostly, by this time, in a condition to understand, for all practical purposes, the meaning of an oath.’

Sir Felix has—­as I have hinted—­his foibles.  But he is an English gentleman and a man of courage.  He gasped, waved a hand, and sat up firmly.

He must have needed courage indeed, as the sorry culprits filed into Court:  for I verily believe he felt more shame than they, though their appearance might be held to prove this impossible.  The police at about eleven o’clock had raided the booth of that respectable landlord, Mr Bates (’Which,’ observed the Superintendent, stonily, ’we may ’ave somethink to say to ‘im, as it were, by-and-by’) and had culled some of them—­even as one picks the unresisting primrose, others not without recourse to persuasion.  ’Many of ’em,’ the Superintendent explained, ’showed a liveliness you wouldn’t believe.  It was, in a manner of speaking, beyond anythink y’r Worships would expect.’  He paused a moment, cleared his throat, and achieved this really fine phrase:  ’It was, for their united ages, in a manner of speaking, a knock-out.’