75 лучших рассказов / 75 Best Short Stories

They were old friends, and they never found it incumbent to be very conversational. The lunch was an excellent, but frugal, meal. They both ate slowly and thoughtfully, and their drink was water. It was not till they reached the dessert stage that his lordship indulged in any very informative comment, and then he recounted to Stephen the details of a recent case in which he considered that the presiding judge had, by an unprecedented paralogy, misinterpreted the law of evidence.

Stephen listened with absorbed attention. He took two cob-nuts from the silver dish, and turned them over meditatively, without cracking them. When his lordship had completely stated his opinion and peeled a pear, Stephen mumbled:

�I have been impressed, very impressed indeed. Even in my own field of limited observation – the opinion of an outsider, you may say – so often it happens – the trouble caused by an affirmation without sufficiently established data.

I have seen lives lost, ruin brought about, endless suffering. Only last week, a young man – a brilliant career – almost shattered. People make statements without—’

He put the nuts back on the dish, and then, in an apparently irrelevant manner, he said abruptly:

�Do you remember Wych Street, my lord?’

The Lord Chief justice grunted.

�Wych Street! Of course I do.’

�Where would you say it was, my lord?’

�Why, here, of course.

’

His lordship took a pencil from his pocket and sketched a plan on the tablecloth.

�It used to run from there to here.’

Stephen adjusted his glasses and carefully examined the plan. He took a long time to do this, and when he had finished his hand instinctively went towards a breast pocket where he kept a note-book with little squared pages. Then he stopped and sighed. After all, why argue with the law? The law was like that – an excellent thing, not infallible, of course (even the plan of the Lord Chief justice was a quarter of a mile out), but still an excellent, a wonderful thing.

He examined the bony knuckles of his hands and yawned slightly.

�Do you remember it?’ said the Lord Chief justice.

Stephen nodded sagely, and his voice seemed to come from a long way off:

�Yes, I remember it, my lord. It was a melancholy little street.