"Miss Wiggin has no corner on analogies," chirped Tutt. "Passing statutes creating new crimes is like printing paper money without anything back of it; in the one case there isn't really any more money than there was before and in the other there isn't really any more crime either."
"Only it makes more business for us."
"I've got another idea," continued Tutt airily, "and that is that crime is a good thing. Not because it means progress or any bunk like that, but because unless you had a certain amount of crime, and also criminal lawyers to attack the law, the state would never find out the weaknesses in its statutes. Therefore the more crime there is the more the protective power of the state is built up, just as the fever engendered by vaccine renders the human body immune from smallpox! Eh, what?"
"I never heard such nonsense!" exclaimed Miss Wiggin. "Do let me give you some more tea! Eh, what?"
But at that moment Willie announced that Mr. Rutherford Wells was calling to see Mr. Tutt and tea was hastily adjourned. Half an hour later the old lawyer rang for Bonnie Doon.
"Bonnie," he said, "one of our clients has been complained against by her next-door neighbor, a got-rich-quick lady, for obstructing the street with her motor. It's obviously a case of social envy, hatred and malice. Just take a run up there in the morning, give Mrs. Pierpont Pumpelly and her premises the once-over and let me know of any violations you happen to observe. I don't care how technical they are, either."
"All right, Mr. Tutt," answered Bonnie. "I get you. Isn't there a new ordinance governing the filling of garbage cans?"
"I think there is," nodded Mr. Tutt. "And meantime I think I'll drop over and see Judge O'Hare."
"I'll settle her hash for her, the hussy!" declared Mrs. Pumpelly to her husband at dinner the following evening. "I'll teach her to insult decent people and violate the law. Just because her husband belongs to a swell club she thinks she can do as she likes! But I'll show her! Wait till I get her in court to-morrow!"