B-Berry and I Look Back by Dornford Yates Page B

‘will’ or ‘would’ where we should say ‘shall’ or ‘should’: and this peculiarity was regarded with interest and amusement. But now the solecism – for that is what it is – is committed by Englishmen of standing every day.
    “You may say that it doesn’t matter. But English is admittedly the very finest language in all the world, and that is, to my mind, a heritage worth having. It would be too much to expect all those who use it to respect it as we do. After all, aliens scrawl their names on the stones of Westminster Abbey and The Tower. But it ill becomes our own stock to deface the English tongue.”
    Unbidden, I rose, fetched the decanter and replenished Berry’s glass. Then I drank to him, and Jonah did too. And Berry drank to us. There was no need of words. Neither scholar nor pedant, my brother-in-law had hit the nail square on the head. It ill becomes our own stock to deface the English tongue.
    “And now,” said Berry, “the Queen’s Bench of today and yesterday.”
    “Sorry,” I said. “Of the Judges of today, I know almost next to nothing. They’re probably very good. One or two, I know, are outstanding. But how they compare with those of The Golden Age, I cannot tell.” I hesitated. “A photograph I once saw made me think. It was taken in the early thirties, and it was a close-up of the two Judges who were taking some Summer Assize. They were walking side by side in procession from their coach to the doors of the Court.
    “I think we’ve all seen that procession – I’ve seen it many times. As the Judges leave the coach, a fanfare of trumpets is blown and they pass slowly up the steps, with the High Sheriff walking before them, wand in hand. The little ceremony is one of the shreds of pageantry which survive, and it can be very impressive.
    “Well, now for the photograph – of Her Majesty’s Justices in Eyre.
    “The taller of the two cut a very dignified figure, wearing his robes with an air, looking straight before him – and wholly ignoring his ‘brother’, who was poking his head towards him, talking as if they were strolling in some back-garden, with his right hand thrust up and out, to emphasize some point. He made me think of a charwoman arguing with a statue; and, remembering other days, I was profoundly shocked. I mean, it showed that the dignity of his high office, the tradition with which it is endowed and the honour which was at that moment being done it meant no more to him than did the bananas which were probably being hawked half a dozen streets away.”
    “A very vulgar exhibition,” said Berry.
    “‘Vulgar,’ I’m afraid,” said I, “is the appropriate word. After all, the Red Judge is Her Majesty’s representative, and the honour and dignity which he is accorded is rendered to him as such. To disregard it is, therefore, offensive. If the Lord Chief saw the photograph – and it was certainly in The Telegraph , if not in The Times – I hope and believe that he fairly put it across him.”
    “Who was the Lord Chief then?”
    “Trevethin, I think. How he did, I don’t know: but he wasn’t up to Alverstone’s weight. I remember him as Lawrence J. I may be prejudiced, for he once gave me a bad time.”
    “How was that?” said Daphne.
    “Well, I was defending a fellow at, we’ll say, the Lewes Assizes. His crime was pardonable, and I did my best to get him off. And Lawrence embarrassed me by interrupting – not once, but again and again.”
    “Please tell us the facts.”
    “The accused had been a grocer’s assistant. Then he was left a legacy – five hundred pounds. So he determined to set up for himself.
    “Now, before I go any further, I think I should make it clear that he was a full-marks fool. Not a knave. There was in the man no guile. He meant to be ‘The Poor Man’s Grocer’ – and make his own fortune in his peculiar way.
    “The first thing he did was to get a shop in a poor quarter of the town. Then he went to an