I then addressed the jury, and said, “A multitude of witnesses may prove anything they like, but my friend has started with an entirely erroneous view of the situation.  The compensation for disturbance of a business must depend a great deal on the nature of the business.  If you can carry it on elsewhere with the same facility and profit, the compensation you are entitled to is very little.  I will illustrate my meaning.  Let us suppose that in this thoroughfare there is a good public-house—­for such a business it would indeed be an excellent situation; you may easily imagine a couple of burly farmers coming up from Farnham or Windlesham to the Cattle Show, and walking over the bridge, hot and thirsty.  ‘Hallo!’ says one; ’I say, Jim, here’s a nice public; what d’ye say to goin’ in and havin’ a glass o’ bitter?  It’s a goodish pull over this ’ere bridge.”

“‘With all my heart,’ says Jim; and in they go.

“There you see the advantage of being on the highroad.  But now, let us see these two stalwart farmers coming along, and—­instead of the handsome public and the bitter ale there is this shop, where they sell medical arrangements—­can you imagine one of them saying to the other, ’I say, Jim, here’s a very nice medical shop; what d’ye say to going in and having a truss?’”

The argument considerably reduced the compensation, but what it lacked in money the claimant got in laughter.

Sometimes I led a witness who was an expert valuer for a claimant to such a gross exaggeration of the value of a business as to stamp the claim with fraud, and so destroy his evidence altogether.

Sir Henry Hunt used to nod with apparent approval at every piece of evidence which showed any kind of exaggeration, but every nod was worth, as a rule, a handsome reduction to the other side.

I shall never forget an attorney’s face who, having been offered L10,000 for a property, stood out for L13,000.

It was a claim by a poulterers’ company for eight houses that were taken by a railway company.  I relied entirely on my speech, as I often did, because the threadbare cross-examinations were almost, by this time, things of course, as were the figures themselves mere results of true calculations on false bases.

This attorney, who had, perhaps, never had a compensation case before, was quite a great man, and took the arbitrator’s assenting nods as so much cash down.

So encouraged, indeed, was he that he became almost impudent to me, and gave me no little annoyance by his impertinent asides.  At last I looked at him good-humouredly, and politely requested him, as though he were the court itself, to suspend his judgment while I had the honour of addressing the arbitrator for twenty minutes, “at the end of which time I promise to make you, sir,” said I, “the most miserable man in existence.”

I was supported in this appeal by the arbitrator, who hoped he would not interrupt Mr. Hawkins.