Judge Not

	Hugh is a judge in a full-bottomed wig. Stephen is 
	counsel with a full bottom. He is cross-examining a 
	female witness, Deborah.


Stephen		So, Miss Talliot, you expect the court to believe
		that on the evening of the fourteenth of November
		last year, the very year, I would remind the court,
		on which the crime that my client is accused of
		committing took place, you just happened to be
		walking in the park?

Deborah		That is correct.

Stephen		That is what?

Deborah		Correct.

Stephen		Oh it's correct, is it? I see. Am I right in
		understanding, Miss Talliot, that the American
		writer Gertrude Stein was a self-confessed
		Lesbian?

Deborah		I believe so.

Stephen		You believe so? Gertrude Stein remains one of the
		most celebrated American female novelists of the
		century, Miss Talliot. Her lesbotic tendencies are
		a matter of public record.

Deborah		Yes.

Stephen		But you only "believe" that she was a Lesbian?

Deborah		Well, I've never really thought of it much. I
		haven't read any of her works.

Stephen		Miss Talliot, there is a bookshop not two streets
		away from your "flat" where the works of Gertrude
		Stein are openly on display.

Deborah		Oh.

Stephen		Yes; "oh". And yet you would have us believe that
		somehow, on the many occasions on which you
		must, in the course of your duties as a woman,
		have passed this shop while shopping, failed
		entirely to enter and buy any book published by
		this openly Sapphic authoress?

Hugh		Mr Foley, I'm afraid I really fail to see where this
		line of questioning is leading us.

Stephen		With your permission m'lud, I am trying to
		establish that this witness has been guilty of
		weaving a tissue of litanies, that far from being the
		respectable president of a children's charity and
		ambassador's daughter that my learned friend the
		counsel for the prosecution would have us believe,
		she is in fact an active, promiscuous and voracious
		Lesbite.

Hugh		I see. Carry on. But I must warn you, Mr Foley,
		that if you attempt to ballyrag or bulldoze the
		witness I shall take a very dim view of it.

Stephen		Your lordship is most pretty.

Hugh		Very well then, you may proceed.

Stephen		Are you aware Miss Talliot -

Deborah		It's Mrs in fact.

Stephen		Oh. Oh, I do beg your pardon. If you wish to
		make so much of it, then I will certainly not
		stand in your way, "Mrs" Talliot, if that is how you
		prefer to be known.

Deborah		It is how my husband prefers me to be known.

Stephen		Your husband the well-known Bishop?

Deborah		Yes.

Stephen		A bishop in a religion, the Church of - ah -
		England, I believe it calls itself, which owns land
		on which houses have been built, houses in
		which it is statistically probable that private acts of
		Lesbian love have been committed?

Hugh		Mr Foley, I fear I must interrupt you again. I
		myself am a member of this same church. Are we
		to imply from the tenor of your thrust that I am a
		Lesbian?

Stephen		Your lordship misunderstands me.

Hugh		I hope so. I hope the day is far distant on which
		I could be accused of making love to a woman!
		Ha, ha, ha.

Stephen		Certainly, m'love. I never meant to imply ...

Hugh		Attraction to women, however, repellent as it may
		be to persons of sensibility, is not in itself a crime.

Stephen		I love your lordship.

Hugh		We must therefore remember, Mr Foley, in our
		enthusiasm to get to the bottom, that Mrs Talliot
		is not on trial, she is a witness. However depraved
		and wicked her acts of lust, they - in all their
		degenerate and disgusting perversion - are not the
		subject of this assize, bestial as they may be.

Stephen		I am yours for ever, m'dear.

Hugh		Please continue.

Stephen		I do not wish, "Mrs Talliot" to submit the court to
		any more details of your sordid and disreputable
		erotic career than is necessary. I merely wish to
		enquire how it might be that you expect a jury
		to believe the testimony of a monstrous bull-dyke
		of your stamp against the word of a respectable
		businessman?

Deborah		I am merely reporting what I saw.

Stephen		What you saw? What you saw through eyes
		dimmed with lust? What you saw maddened by
		the noxious juices of your notorious practices?

Deborah		What I saw on my way back from the parish
		council meeting.

Stephen		Is it not a fact that the words "parish council" are
		an anagram of "lispian crouch"?

Deborah		Er ...

Stephen		You hesitate, Miss Toilet!

Deborah		I was ...

Stephen		You stand condemned out of your own soiled and
		contaminated mouth.

Deborah		I -

Stephen		No further questions.

Deborah		Well ...

Stephen		You may stand down, Miss Lesbian.

Deborah		Oh. And will you be in for tea tonight, Jeremy?

Stephen		Certainly, mother. (Louder) Call Sir Anthony
		Known-Bender.

Stephen		Of course crime is bound to
		be on the increase. If you're
		the kind of person who wants
		to start a satellite broadcasting
		channel, but you can't get a
		licence, crime is the obvious
		alternative.