"Yes, my costs will be 75 cents, and that makes 25 dollars 75 cents altogether."
Then ensued more argument, more persuasion, more eloquence, more appeals, but it was all in vain. I took out my wallet and counted out my belongings.
I had just 25 dollars and a few odd "bits."
And then the humour of the situation appealed to me once more, and stronger than ever before. I laughed at the Cop and I laughed at the Judge and I laughed at myself for laughing and paid over the 25 dollars 75 cents.
"Thank you very much. Good-day, sir," said the Judge as he put the "bucks" loosely in the drawer in his desk.
Here the Cop spoke up: "I have another charge against the defendant, of riding without his registration certificate, but it's getting late, and I think we might as well overlook it in view of the circumstances." (He was evidently thinking of his girl waiting outside.)
I suggested it would be as well and left the Judge to gloat over his ill-gotten gains.
The idea of that goat-faced Judge and his sleek-eyed friend the "speed cop" having a good dinner together at my expense did not appeal to my better self. How was I going to travel 450 miles, buy petrol, oil and food with about tenpence in my pocket? On the opposite side of the road stood Lizzie with her carrier piled high and dusty, waiting, patiently waiting, for her lord and master. Ah, pathetic sight!—An idea—I return to the sanctum of the "Attorney-at-Law."
He was counting over the notes again.