Part 2

An old Brahmin had come up in time to hear this avowal. ‘’Tis very strange,’ said the wise man. ‘This fellow is surely a magician, and may set all the rocks of Shorapoor dancing and tumbling about our ears, some day. Turn him instantly away, or it may be the worse for us all.’

‘No, no,’ shouted the multitude. ‘That would be inhospitable. Let him remain, and we shall soon see what he can do.’

The little active man now came forward again, and said slyly, ‘Sir, if you really _are_ such a mischief-maker as you describe yourself to be, suppose you were to give us a little specimen of your power,—just some trifling matter to judge by.’

‘What, _now_?’ said the stranger.

‘Aye, _now_!’ exclaimed all; ‘and the sooner the better.’

‘Well, be it so,’ said he; ‘let me put up my things and come along!’ And with this he arose, packed up, girded on his sword, and strode majestically forward, followed by a crowd continually increasing as they advanced further into the town.

‘Now don’t push or press upon me so much,’ said the stranger; ‘but observe what I do, and watch the consequences.’ So they let him proceed, and as he advanced, they soon perceived that he was forming some deep plan, particularly as he paused every now and then, with his forefinger between his teeth, and nodded, and wagged his head, as much as to say, ‘I have it!’ Upon which he made straight for a shop kept by a man who sold flour and such like things, and accosting the dealer, inquired with great civility, whether he had any _honey_? ‘That I have, Sir,’ replied the shop-keeper, ‘plenty fresh from the comb; only taste it, and I’m sure you’ll buy. Here, Sir; look at this beautiful jar, full of the finest honey that was ever seen in Shorapoor.’

‘It looks well,’ replied the stranger, dipping his hand in; ‘and does not taste amiss:’ saying which he gave his finger a careless kind of shake; but he knew right well what he was about, as a little lump stuck upon the outer wall.

‘It really _is_ good,’ said the Mischief-Maker. ‘Give me a small pot of it, that I may take it home to my children.’

While the shop-keeper was filling a small new pot, over which he tied a fresh green leaf, the people who had been following, came up, and said, ‘Sir, you are only making game of us; you are giving us no proof of what you said. What mischief is there in buying a little pot of honey?’

‘Be quiet, my good people, and content yourselves for a couple of minutes, while I get my change, and put my purchase in a safe place, and you will soon see something—wait here, and I’ll be back to you directly.’ The Mischief-Maker vanished in an instant!

Now it happened that this shop was a mere shed of a place, projecting into the street, from the wall on which the honey had been thrown; nor had the tempting bait been long there, before it was smelt out by a large hungry fly, which had been spending many fruitless hours buzzing about the dealer’s jar, so carefully was it always covered. Here was a glorious opportunity for a fine supper, and down he came upon it with eager appetite—without looking about him as he ought—for over his head, under the cover of the wall, among old chinks and cobwebs, there dwelt a wily, dust-coloured lizard, who enjoyed a fly beyond everything else in the world, and had been particularly unsuccessful in fly-catching all day. Watching, therefore, till the fly had buried his mining apparatus pretty deep in the honey, he crept down quietly, looking as like a bit of old plaster as possible, but for those bright eyes of his, which in his eagerness for the capture, were intently fixed upon the fly. Unlucky wight! Little did he think that those very eyes had attracted the attention of a fine tabby cat, who but a few minutes before, with blinking eyes, presented a perfect picture of contentment, but now roused by a sudden temptation, was crouching stealthily down as she beheld the lizard, for whom she had so often watched in vain. Down stole the lizard—on stole the cat; so that here at the same moment were three creatures so bent upon indulgence, that they never even thought of looking about them! But were these three all the parties to be engaged? Alas! no. There was a sworn enemy of the cat’s approaching also (under cover of a large basket), in the shape of a mischievous white dog, kept by a very quarrelsome man on the other side of the street. This dog was the terror of all the cats in the neighbourhood, and most of all, of the flour-dealer’s; so often had he chased her, and so often experienced the bitter disappointment of seeing her climbing up the posts of the shop, and then spitting at him from the top of the shed.

Infatuated lizard! Wretched fly! Betrayed pussy! _She_ heeded not the sly creep of the dog, so intent was she upon the successful issue of her spring upon the lizard. The fly was gorging himself with honey. He alone partook not of the intense anxiety of the lizard, the cat, and the dog. He partook only of—_honey_!

The crisis at length arrived. The lizard made its nimble pounce at the fly. The cat sprang at the lizard. The lizard missed its footing in consequence, and would have been the cat’s portion—fly, honey, and all—but for the dog’s sudden attack upon puss. Here was a scene! The lizard falling to the ground, was at once involved in the consequences of the quarrel between the dog and cat. What were fly or honey to him at the moment, when in a state between life and death he crept back sore and wounded to his chinks and cobwebs! The fly might or might not have escaped. Not so the cat, now sorely worried by the dog, in spite of all her outcries and all she could do in the way of biting and clawing; for it was an old score the dog was paying her off, and that might soon have cost her her life, if her master had not rushed out of his shop with a broomstick, with which he began to belabour the dog.

Now the owner of the dog had been as long at enmity with the man of flour and honey, as the dog had been at enmity with the cat, and probably longer. Of course, therefore, when he heard his animal’s cries, and saw the punishment inflicting, he armed himself with a broomstick also; and rushing across the street, gave the flour-dealer such a crack upon his head, as knocked him down as flat as a pancake.

‘Take that you villain,’ said he, ‘for it’s a debt I’ve long owed you!’

‘Have you?’ said the flour-dealer’s son, as he rushed out with a cudgel in his hand. ‘Then tell me how you like _that_’—giving him such a hearty whack across the shoulders, that he was fain to drop his broomstick.

Yet the blow had hardly been given, before a friend of the dog’s master ran up with a drawn sword, and would have made mincemeat of the flour-dealer’s son, but for a soldier who cried out, ‘Shame, thou coward, and son of a coward, who would attack a youth with only a stick in his hand, and you armed with a sword! Shame on you! It’s just like you rascally Hindoo fellows, who pretend to be soldiers, and are as much like soldiers as that poor cat. Why don’t you try me?’

‘Why not?’ replied the man. ‘Do you think I’m afraid of such a bully as you? Come on, you scoundrel, and I’ll show you what difference there is between a cat and a Hindoo!’

Upon this the soldier drew his sword, and both began to cut at each other in good earnest.

On this all the people cried out, ‘Murder! Murder!’ and a great many soldiers running to the spot, were soon engaged, always attacking the Hindoos, who were on the dog’s side, and the Hindoos the Mussulmans, who were on the side of the cat; and wherever a Hindoo and a Mussulman were fighting, the Hindoos aided the Hindoo, and the Mussulmans the Mussulman; and the consequence was the death of many on each side, and the wounding of most of the foolish quarrelsome people engaged.

Of course such a hubbub as this could not be continued long without its being reported to the Rajah, who forthwith hastened from his palace with his body-guard and some horsemen, and soon put a stop to this terrible fray; and all the ringleaders were forthwith seized and tied together, and marched off to prison, there to be kept closely confined till the sad business should be fully enquired into, and the cause of so dreadful a riot ascertained, and fixed upon the guilty.

All that night, therefore, were the magistrates and police-officers hard at work listening to evidence, but they did not advance a single step in the business; no, nor for several days after, notwithstanding the great impatience of the Rajah, to whom they could only report from time to time the hearing of nothing but the words, ‘Cat, Dog,’—‘Cat and Dog,’—‘Dog and Cat,’—‘Dog’—‘Cat.’

A very similar feeling, also, was entertained by the lawyers who were called in, and who, after intense application, declared themselves doubtful, _very_ doubtful,—so much was advanced and really to be said and supported by various precedents, both on the side of the cat and of the dog, and, consequently, of the owner of the cat, as well as the owner of the dog, and the partisans of the owners of the dog and cat,—insomuch, that the whole city was split into most determined cat and dog factions, and all strangers that entered the gates were instantly absorbed in the dog and cat vortex, and whirled actually round and round in this terrible fray, which every now and then broke out with fresh fury, notwithstanding all the vigilance of the Rajah’s guards. And yet even these valiant heroes were in some degree infected, giving sly cuts at dog or cat men, just as they themselves inclined to support the cat and dog question.

And so matters might have remained, either to the day of the final depopulation of Shorapoor, or Doomsday itself, but for the wise old Brahmin who had given such timely warning to turn out the stranger.

He had in reality been quietly chuckling a little, as many are wont to do who have lived to see their prophecies first despised and then fulfilled; but his heart relenting, he hastened to the palace, and prostrating himself before the Rajah with hands joined together, he thus spoke:—

‘May I be your sacrifice, O thou eater of mountains and drinker of rivers! I have a petition to make in this matter of the cat and dog!’

‘It shall be heard,’ replied the Rajah. ‘Thou art a wise man; what dost thou say?—dog—cat—dog and cat, or cat and dog? For my own part, I still reserve my decision, though somewhat inclining to the opinion that the cat caused all the mischief, and for this reason,—because if the dog had not seen the cat, he very probably would not have chased her—“out of sight out of mind” being one of our oldest as well as truest proverbs.’

‘Alas! that I should differ with your Highness—Brave Falcon, terrible in War—the most valiant of the State—the Tiger of the Country,’ replied the Prime Minister. ‘How could the cat help being worried by the dog?—and did not nature give her a right to go where she pleased?’

So the whole Court took at once different sides, and matters might have come to a serious explosion, even within the sacred walls of the palace itself, but for the Brahmin, who again lifted up his voice and said:—

‘May it please your Highness! Let me declare to you that it was neither the dog nor the cat that caused all this misery, but the _Fly_ and the Honey!’

‘The fly and the honey! The fly and the honey!’ exclaimed the astonished Rajah. ‘What honey, and what fly?’

And, as this was a perfectly new idea, the assembly listened with profound attention while the holy man unfolded the true history of the case. His having seen the stranger, and warned the people against him. How accurately he had observed the drop of honey dabbed against the wall. Then the approach of the fly, the sly gliding of the lizard, the wily creeping of the cat, and the stealthy vindictive movements of the dog—involving all these creatures in much pain and difficulty, and which afterwards overspread the city.

‘Hold, learned man,’ cried the Rajah, ‘thou hast well said; my eyes are opened!’ and he desired search to be made for the man who had too well earned the title of Mischief-Maker. But he was no where to be either found or heard of; and the poor flour-dealer, who stood among the prisoners with a bandaged head, declared that the villain had not even paid for the honey that had caused the whole tumult.

‘Well,’ exclaimed the Rajah, after a profound pause; ‘here now may most plainly be seen a proof—if any such were required—that my subjects only want a pretext, no matter what, to quarrel, and they are sure to go to loggerheads.

‘I now throw no blame upon either the cat or the dog; for each animal followed its own peculiar instinct. The blame and the punishment too, must light upon the owners of the dog and cat for fighting, and thus inducing others to espouse so ridiculous a quarrel.’

And forthwith he ordered all the principal rioters into confinement, saying also to the rest of the people:—

‘Go home now, fools that ye are, and try whether you cannot make up your minds to live at peace with one another. I cannot prevent your keeping cats and dogs, because were I to do so, we should be devoured by vermin or exposed to robbery. But this I tell you, you shall not turn yourselves into cats and dogs for the future with impunity—DEPART!’ So they all sneaked off; and the active little man whose head somebody had broken, scratched it and said:—

‘Only think how well that strange fellow knew us all!’

A CARD FROM MR. BOOLEY.

MR. BOOLEY (the great traveller) presents his compliments to the conductor of Household Words, and begs to call his attention to an omission in the account given in that delightful journal, of MR. BOOLEY’S remarks, in addressing the Social Oysters.

MR. BOOLEY, in proposing the health of MR. THOMAS GRIEVE, in connexion with the beautiful diorama of the route of the Overland Mail to India, expressly added (amid much cheering from the Oysters) the names of MR. TELBIN his distinguished coadjutor; MR. ABSOLON, who painted the figures; and MR. HERRING, who painted the animals. Although MR. BOOLEY’S tribute of praise can be of little importance to those gentlemen, he is uneasy in finding them left out of the delightful Journal referred to.

MR. BOOLEY has taken the liberty of endeavouring to give this communication an air of novelty, by omitting the words ‘Now, Sir,’ which are generally supposed to be essential to all letters written to Editors for publication. It may be interesting to add, in fact, that the Social Oysters considered it impossible that MR. BOOLEY could, by any means, throw off the present communication, without availing himself of that established form of address.

_Highbury Barn, Monday Evening._

LAW AT A LOW PRICE.

Low, narrow, dark, and frowning are the thresholds of our Inns of Court. If there is one of these entrances of which I have more dread than another, it is that leading out of Holborn to Gray’s Inn. I never remember to have met a cheerful face at it, until the other morning, when I encountered Mr. Ficker, attorney-at-law. In a few minutes we found ourselves arm in arm, and straining our voices to the utmost amid the noise of passing vehicles. Mr. Ficker stretched himself on tiptoe in a frantic effort to inform me that he was going to a County Court. ‘But perhaps you have not heard of these places?’

I assured Mr. Ficker that the parliamentary discussions concerning them had made me very anxious to see how justice was administered in these establishments for low-priced Law. ‘I am going to one now,’ but he impressively added, ‘you must understand, that professionally I do not approve of their working. There can be no doubt that they seriously prejudice the regular course of law. Comparing the three quarters preceding with three quarters subsequent to the establishment of these Courts, there was a decrease of nearly 10,000 writs issued by the Court of Queen’s Bench alone, or of nearly 12,500 on the year.’

We soon arrived at the County Court. It is a plain, substantial-looking building, wholly without pretension, but at the same time not devoid of some little architectural elegance of exterior. We entered, by a gateway far less austere than that of Gray’s Inn, a long, well-lighted passage, on either side of which were offices connected with the Court. One of these was the Summons Office, and I observed on the wall a ‘Table of Fees,’ and as I saw Mr. Ficker consulting it with a view to his own business, I asked him his opinion of the charges.

‘Why,’ said he, ‘the scale of fees is too large for the client and too small for the lawyer. But suitors object less to the amount than to the intricacies and perplexities of the Table. In some districts the expense of recovering a sum of money is one-third more than it is in others; though in both the same scale of fees is in operation. This arises from the variety of interpretations which different judges and officers put upon the charges.’

Passing out of the Summons Office, we entered a large hall, placarded with lists of trials for the ensuing week. There were more than one hundred of them set down for trial on nearly every day.

‘I am glad,’ I said, ‘to think that this is not all additional litigation. I presume these are the thousands of causes a year withdrawn from the superior Courts?’

‘The skeletons of them,’ said Mr. Ficker, with a sigh. ‘There were some pickings out of the old processes; but I am afraid that there is nothing but the bone here.’

‘I see here,’ said I, pointing to one of the lists, ‘a single plaintiff entered, as proceeding against six-and-twenty defendants in succession.’

‘Ah,’ said Mr. Ficker, rubbing his hands, ‘a knowing fellow that; quite awake to the business of these Courts. A cheap and easy way, Sir, of recovering old debts. I don’t know who the fellow is—a tailor very likely—but no doubt you will find his name in the list in this way once every half year. If his Midsummer and Christmas bills are not punctually paid, it is far cheaper to come here and get a summons served, than to send all over London to collect the accounts, with the chance of not finding the customer at home. And this is one way, you see, in which we solicitors are defrauded. No doubt, this fellow formerly employed an attorney to write letters for him, requesting payment of the amount of his bill, and 6_s_. 8_d_. for the cost of the application. Now, instead of going to an attorney, he comes here and gets the summons served for 2_s_. A knowing hand that,—a knowing hand.’

‘But,’ I said, ‘surely no respectable tradesman——’

_‘Respectable_,’ said Mr. Ficker, ‘I said nothing, about respectability. This sort of thing is very common among a certain class of tradespeople, especially puffing tailors and bootmakers. Such people rely less on regular than on chance custom, and therefore they care less about proceeding against those who deal with them.’

‘But,’ said I, ‘this is a decided abuse of the power of the Court. Such fellows ought to be exposed.’

‘Phoo, phoo,’ said Mr. Ficker; ‘they are, probably, soon known here, and then, if the judge does his duty, they get bare justice, and nothing more. I am not sure, indeed, that sometimes their appearance here may not injure rather than be of advantage to them; for the barrister may fix a distant date for payment of a debt which the tradesman, by a little civility, might have obtained from his customer a good deal sooner.’

‘The Court’ I found to be a lofty room, somewhat larger and handsomer than the apartment in which the Hogarths are hung up in the National Gallery. One half was separated from the other by a low partition, on the outer side of which stood a miscellaneous crowd of persons who appeared to be waiting their turn to be called forward. Though the appearance of the Court was new and handsome, everything was plain and simple.

I was much struck by the appearance and manner of the Judge. He was comparatively a young man; but I fancied that he displayed the characteristics of experience. His attention to the proceedings was unwearied; his discrimination appeared admirable; and there was a calm self-possession about him that bordered upon dignity.

The suitors who attended were of every class and character. There were professional men, tradesmen, costermongers, and a peer. Among the plaintiffs, there were specimens of the considerate plaintiff, the angry plaintiff, the cautious plaintiff, the bold-swearing plaintiff, the energetic plaintiff, the practised plaintiff, the shrewish (female) plaintiff, the nervous plaintiff, and the revengeful plaintiff. Each plaintiff was allowed to state his or her case in his or her own way, and to call witnesses, if there were any. When the debt appeared to be _primâ facie_ proved, the Barrister turned to the defendant, and perhaps asked him if he disputed it?

The characteristics of the defendants were quite as different as the characteristics of the plaintiffs. There was the factious defendant, and the defendant upon principle—the stormy defendant, and the defendant who was timid—the impertinent defendant, and the defendant who left his case entirely to the Court—the defendant who would never pay, and the defendant who would if he could. The causes of action I found to be as multifarious as the parties were diverse. Besides suits by tradespeople for every description of goods supplied, there were claims for every sort and kind of service that can belong to humanity, from the claim of a monthly nurse, to the claim of the undertaker’s assistant.

In proving these claims the Judge was strict in insisting that a proper account should have been delivered; and that the best evidence should be produced as to the correctness of the items. No one could come to the court and receive a sum of money merely by swearing that ‘Mr. So-and-so owes me so much.’

With regard to defendants, the worst thing they could do, was to remain away when summoned to attend. It has often been observed that those persons about whose dignity there is any doubt, are the most rigorous in enforcing its observance. It is with Courts as it is with men; and as Small Debt Courts are sometimes apt to be held in some contempt, I found the Judge here very prompt in his decision, whenever a defendant did not appear by self or agent. Take a case in point:—

_Barrister_ (_to the Clerk of the Court_). Make an order in favour of the plaintiff.

_Plaintiff’s Attorney._ Your honour will give us speedy recovery?

_Barrister._ Will a month do, Mr. Docket?

_Plaintiff’s Attorney._ The defendant is not here to assign any reason for delay, your honour.

_Barrister._ Very well: then let him pay in a fortnight.

I was much struck, in some of the cases, by a friendly sort of confidence which characterised some of the proceedings. Here again the effect in a great measure was attributable to the Barrister. He seemed to act,—as indeed he is—rather as an authorised arbitrator than as a Judge. He advised rather than ordered; ‘I really think,’ he said to one defendant, ‘I really think, Sir, you have made yourself liable.’ ‘Do you, Sir?’ said the man, pulling out his purse without more ado, ‘then, Sir, I am sure I will pay.’

It struck me, too, as remarkable, that though some of the cases were hotly contested, none of the defeated parties complained of the decision. In several instances, the parties even appeared to acquiesce in the propriety of the verdict.