Interlocutory Hearing, Royal Courts of Justice

A “mention” in the Master’s ante-room. Another February had arrived, with dirty snow and heavy, slate-grey skies. (One couldn’t help observing, on the sly, the Master’s knees were blanket-draped beneath his desk.) No wigs or gowns on show. A minor hearing in a puny case. They call it “inter partes” when both sides turn up. Some point-at-issue had loomed large, and we were here to tussle over it. This room, so Ruskinesque, with frescoes high on every wall, so hard to heat, was one great chilly barn. The speaker’s breath plumed out before him. “And my learned friend … “ Our leader’s voice, so sensible in its drone, so sweetly reasonable, continued on, so redolent of wintry afternoons, like hissing logs a-burning in the grate. Those practised highs and lows, mellifluous, his easy-listening tone, so bland, so blithe, relying on the case of this-or-that, distinguishing the precedent of such, “I think it was Lord Blinkwell who opined …” Two hundred years ago – a little less – the young Charles Dickens wasted days in here (the chances are, here in this very room, observing dreary sleet run down the windows), mired in this solemn nonsense. Might it be, he swore an oath – if ever he escaped, he’d never take life seriously again? If so, this ponderous symphony in grey, as glum as Shostokovich etched in stone, has cranked out clowns. There may be more to come.