Flash and Filigree by Terry Southern Page B

was modest, as though the two men had established a bond.
    “ What kind?” asked the chorus, turning cross on itself like a thin, wounded snake. And as the young man’s voice was heard again to say “souped-up!” Judge Lester spoke out mildly: “Let us have order. The two cars involved, as stated in Officer’s Report, were a Cadillac sedan, and a Delahaye. The Delahaye is a French sports car.”
    When Judge Lester stopped speaking, the attention of the Jury seemed to remain with him as if he should have more to say on the matter. Several actually strained toward him in speechless anticipation, and then seemed to take his silence as an unleashing, for they all tried to speak at once, but almost as quickly gave way to the woman who had asked the important question, and who was still standing.
    “Doctor, how did you happen to be going so fast in the first place?”
    Dr. Eichner’s face clouded slightly. “Fast?” There was some confusion in his tone, which only then seemed overcome by friendly reproach. “Perhaps our standards are different,” he said quietly. “By ‘first place, ’ however, I assume you mean the first point of collision? The speed there we’ve estimated at 95 . . .” Here his voice trailed away and, though not at a loss, he gave a shrug, merely as if there were nothing more to add.
    “And don’t you consider that just a-little-fast, Doctor?” The businessman spoke out so sharply that for one electric moment everything seemed to hinge on the Doctor’s response.
    Yet he did not falter, but only gazed at the man with curious interest before replying: “In what sense? Certainly not in the legal sense—our concern here—since there is no lawful requirement, or limitation, of speed on the Canyon Drive between Wilshire and Drexel. That is correct, is it not, Judge Lester?”
    “Yes, that is true,” said the Judge, who was leaning forward now in close attention, and he continued after a pause: “I do not consider the question, however, necessarily improper.”
    “ I do not consider the question necessarily improper,” Dr. Eichner agreed, speaking with restrained enthusiasm to Judge Lester, as though the two of them were comfortably before an open fire, alone, about to savor some Old Port and metaphysics. “It is a personal question, however, and I think our best approach to it is a semantic one. I would have to ask the Juror what he intends by his word, fast? ” And so, returning to the questioner with a tolerant smile, the Doctor continued. “ Fast, you mean, no doubt, as opposed to slow. But I would have to ask you: which slow? Slow, as the hands of a clock? Or Slow . . . as a guided missile?”
    “I don’t mean slow, Doctor,” said the businessman as though he had uncovered a scorpion, “I mean FAST, and fast for an automobile!”
    “I was almost sure you did,” said the Doctor affably. “Still, we mustn’t anticipate the relative-value, must we? And yet I will anticipate, that by automobile, you mean my automobile or an automobile of its type: straight-six with an FIA Class D displacement. In which case, the answer is: No, it is not fast. A glance at last year’s record sheets for the Le Mans and Biarritz runs will reassure you on that point; or again, at the Official Log of flat-trials at Salt Lake, available, I believe, in our Public Library.”
    When the Doctor ended, the Jury seemed embarrassedly quiet, immobile, some staring at the Doctor with that open, hopelessly committed wonder that ragged children hold for people eating cake, while the eyes of the others turned beseechingly to the presidium, from where Judge Lester, his head slightly to the side, a faint smile on his lips, asked in a curious voice: “How did you happen to be going at that speed, Doctor? In the first place,” he added, a bit colloquially, so that there was at least a sheen of innocent levity over the question, and from somewhere in the Jury then, came one, isolated laugh, raucous, but buried and