"You won't be able to say afterwards," said Meldon, "that you were not fairly warned. We've done our duty whatever happens."
"You've done it in the most thorough way," said the judge, "and I hope I shall see a great deal of you while I'm in Ballymoy."
"I'll just finish this chop," said Meldon, "and then O'Donoghue and I must be off. We have a long ride before us. I'll tell Doyle to sprinkle some chloride of lime in your bedroom, and to damp the sheets with Condy's Fluid. I don't suppose it will be much use, but it's the best we can do if your mind is made up."
Meldon left the hotel and mounted his bicycle without speaking another word. He rode rapidly out of the town, followed at some distance by O'Donoghue, who was a cyclist of inferior strength and energy. For the first four miles the road to Ballymoy goes steadily up hill. Meldon, gripping his handle-bars tightly, rode at a fast rate. O'Donoghue was left further and further behind. At the top of the hill Meldon had a lead of a full quarter of a mile. Then the left pedal of his bicycle came off, and he was obliged to dismount. He was working at it with a spanner when O'Donoghue, breathless and in a bad temper, came up with him. Meldon greeted him cheerfully.
"Obstinate old swine the judge is," he said. "You would have thought a man like that whose business in life consists very largely in weighing evidence, and who has been specially trained to arrive at sound conclusions from the facts presented to him, would have seen the necessity of giving up this ridiculous expedition of his to Ballymoy."
"Why did you ride on like that and leave me behind?" said O'Donoghue shortly.
"If I were inclined to be captious and wanted to find fault," said Meldon, "I might say why did you lag behind and leave me to ride by myself? I don't want to ride by myself. I want to discuss the judge's conduct."
O'Donoghue also wanted to discuss the judge's conduct. He was even more anxious to find out, if he could, why Meldon disliked the idea of this particular judge paying a visit to Ballymoy. He recovered his temper with an effort.
"I don't think," he said, "that he believed a word you said about the drains."
"That's exactly what I'm complaining of. He ought to have believed us. According to all the rules of evidence, no stronger testimony could possibly have been offered than the statements of a clergyman and a doctor, neither of whom had any personal interest in the condition of the drains. Unless we'd brought a bottle of water out of Doyle's well, and shown him the bacilli swimming about in it, I don't see what more we could have done."