I should like to have lingered a little in the old town itself, with its quaint little arched passages and curious architecture; but Cary advised me to nurse all my strength for the "Tribunal." I suppose it must be with some moral hope of discountenancing litigation that foreign Governments always make the Law Courts as dirty and disgusting as possible, pitch them in a filthy quarter, and surround them with every squalor. This one was a paragon of its kind, and for rags and ruffianly looks I never saw the equal of the company there assembled. I am not yet quite sure that the fellow who showed us the way did n't purposely mislead us; for we traversed a dozen dark corridors, and went up and went down more staircases than I have accomplished for the last six months. Now and then we stopped for a minute to interrogate somebody through a sliding pane in a kind of glass cage, and off we went again. At last we came to a densely crowded passage, making way through which, we entered a large hall with a vaulted roof, crammed with people, but who made room at the instance of a red-eyed, red-bearded little man in a black gown, that I now, to my horror and disgust, found out was my counsel, being already engaged by Lord George to defend me.
"This is treachery, Cary," whispered I, angrily.
"I know it is," said she, "and I 'm one of the traitors; but anything is better than to see you pine away your life in a sick-room."
This was neither the time nor place for much colloquy, as we now had to fight our way vigorously through the mob till we reached a row of seats where the bar were placed, and where we were politely told to be seated. Directly in front of us sat three ill-favored old fellows in black gowns and square black caps, modelled after those brown-paper helmets so popular with plasterers and stucco men in our country. I found it a great trial not to laugh every time I looked at them!
There was no case "on" at the moment, but a kind of wrangle was going forward about whose was to be the next hearing, in which I could hear my own name mingled. My lawyer, Signor Mastuccio, seemed to make a successful appeal in my favor; for the three old "plasterers" put up their eyeglasses, and stared earnestly at Cary, after which the chief of them nodded benignly, and said that the case of Giacomo Lamporeccho might be called; and accordingly, with a voice that might have raised the echoes of the Alps, a fellow screamed out that the "homicidio"—I have no need to translate the word—was then before the Court If I only were to tell you, Tom, of the tiresome, tedious, and unmeaning formalities that followed, your case in listening would be scarcely more enviable than was my own while enduring them. All the preliminary proceedings were in writing, and a dirty little dog, with a vile odor of garlic about him, read some seventy pages of a manuscript which I was informed was the accusation against me. Then appeared another creature,—his twin brother in meanness and poverty,—who proved to be a doctor, the same who had professionally attended the wounded man, and who also read a memoir of the patient's sufferings and peril. These occupied the Court till it was nigh three o'clock, when, being concluded, Giacomo himself was called. I assure you, Tom, I gave a start when, instead of the large, fine, burly, well-bearded rascal with the Lablache voice, I beheld a pale, thin, weakly creature, with a miserable treble, inform the Court that he was Giacomo Lamporeccho.
Cary, who translated for me as he spoke, told me that he gave an account of our interview together, in which it would appear that my conduct was that of an outrageous maniac. He described me as accusing everybody of roguery and cheating,—calling the whole country a den of thieves, and the authorities their accomplices. He detailed his own mild remonstrances against my hasty judgment, and his calm appeals to my better reason. He dwelt long upon his wounded honor, and, what he felt still more deeply, the wounded honor of his nation; and at last he actually began to cry when his feelings got too much for him, at which the Court sobbed, and the bar sobbed, and the general audience, in a mixture of grief and menace, muttered the most signal vengeance against your humble servant.
I happened to be—a rare thing for me, latterly—in one of my old moods, when the ludicrous and absurd carry away all my sympathies; and faith, Tom, I laughed as heartily as ever I did in my life at the whole scene. "Are we coming to the wound yet, Cary," said I, "tell me that," for the fellow had now begun again.
"Yes, papa, he is describing it, and, by his account, it ought to have killed him."
"Egad," said I, "it will be the death of me with laughing;" and I shook till my sides ached.
"Does his Excellency know that he is in a Court of Justice?" said Plasterer No. 1.