The Forsyte Saga - Volume 1

The name Philip Baynes Bosinney was called three times by the Ushers,

and the sound of the calling echoed with strange melancholy throughout

the Court and Galleries.

The crying of this name, to which no answer was returned, had upon

James a curious effect: it was like calling for your lost dog about

the streets. And the creepy feeling that it gave him, of a man missing,

grated on his sense of comfort and security-on his cosiness. Though he

could not have said why, it made him feel uneasy.

He looked now at the clock--a quarter to three! It would be all over in

a quarter of an hour. Where could the young fellow be?

It was only when Mr. Justice Bentham delivered judgment that he got over

the turn he had received.

Behind the wooden erection, by which he was fenced from more ordinary

mortals, the learned Judge leaned forward. The electric light, just

turned on above his head, fell on his face, and mellowed it to an orange

hue beneath the snowy crown of his wig; the amplitude of his robes grew

before the eye; his whole figure, facing the comparative dusk of the

Court, radiated like some majestic and sacred body. He cleared his

throat, took a sip of water, broke the nib of a quill against the desk,

and, folding his bony hands before him, began.

To James he suddenly loomed much larger than he had ever thought Bentham

would loom. It was the majesty of the law; and a person endowed with

a nature far less matter-of-fact than that of James might have been

excused for failing to pierce this halo, and disinter therefrom the

somewhat ordinary Forsyte, who walked and talked in every-day life under

the name of Sir Walter Bentham.

He delivered judgment in the following words:

"The facts in this case are not in dispute. On May 15 last the defendant

wrote to the plaintiff, requesting to be allowed to withdraw from his

professional position in regard to the decoration of the plaintiff's

house, unless he were given 'a free hand.' The plaintiff, on May 17,

wrote back as follows: 'In giving you, in accordance with your request,

this free hand, I wish you to clearly understand that the total cost of

the house as handed over to me completely decorated, inclusive of your

fee (as arranged between us) must not exceed twelve thousand pounds.' To

this letter the defendant replied on May 18: 'If you think that in such

a delicate matter as decoration I can bind myself to the exact pound, I

am afraid you are mistaken.' On May 19 the plaintiff wrote as follows:

'I did not mean to say that if you should exceed the sum named in my

letter to you by ten or twenty or even fifty pounds there would be

any difficulty between us. You have a free hand in the terms of this

correspondence, and I hope you will see your way to completing the

decorations.' On May 20 the defendant replied thus shortly: 'Very well.'