"In completing these decorations, the defendant incurred liabilities
and expenses which brought the total cost of this house up to the sum of
twelve thousand four hundred pounds, all of which expenditure has been
defrayed by the plaintiff. This action has been brought by the plaintiff
to recover from the defendant the sum of three hundred and fifty pounds
expended by him in excess of a sum of twelve thousand and fifty pounds,
alleged by the plaintiff to have been fixed by this correspondence as
the maximum sum that the defendant had authority to expend.
"The question for me to decide is whether or no the defendant is liable
to refund to the plaintiff this sum. In my judgment he is so liable.
"What in effect the plaintiff has said is this 'I give you a free hand
to complete these decorations, provided that you keep within a total
cost to me of twelve thousand pounds. If you exceed that sum by as much
as fifty pounds, I will not hold you responsible; beyond that point you
are no agent of mine, and I shall repudiate liability.' It is not quite
clear to me whether, had the plaintiff in fact repudiated liability
under his agent's contracts, he would, under all the circumstances, have
been successful in so doing; but he has not adopted this course. He
has accepted liability, and fallen back upon his rights against the
defendant under the terms of the latter's engagement.
"In my judgment the plaintiff is entitled to recover this sum from the
defendant.
"It has been sought, on behalf of the defendant, to show that no limit
of expenditure was fixed or intended to be fixed by this correspondence.
If this were so, I can find no reason for the plaintiff's importation
into the correspondence of the figures of twelve thousand pounds and
subsequently of fifty pounds. The defendant's contention would render
these figures meaningless. It is manifest to me that by his letter of
May 20 he assented to a very clear proposition, by the terms of which he
must be held to be bound.
"For these reasons there will be judgment for the plaintiff for the
amount claimed with costs."
James sighed, and stooping, picked up his umbrella which had fallen with
a rattle at the words 'importation into this correspondence.'
Untangling his legs, he rapidly left the Court; without waiting for his
son, he snapped up a hansom cab (it was a clear, grey afternoon) and
drove straight to Timothy's where he found Swithin; and to him, Mrs.
Septimus Small, and Aunt Hester, he recounted the whole proceedings,
eating two muffins not altogether in the intervals of speech.