"Oh, nonsense!" contradicted another, "there couldn't have been a mob, there are not people enough in that street to make a mob!"
Then I mildly but firmly remarked: "Oh, yes, there are, for you know that legally three's a mob and two's a crowd."
A shout of laughter followed this bit of information. "How utterly absurd!" cried one. "Well, of all the ridiculous ideas I ever heard!" laughed another. And then, suddenly, dear old Uncle Dick (Mr. Richard Stevens and player of old men, to be correct) came to my support, and, with the authority of a one-time barrister, declared my statement to be perfectly correct.
"But where, in the name of Heaven, did you get your information?"
"Oh," I vaguely replied, "I just read it somewhere."
"That's a rather broad statement," remarked Uncle Dick; "you don't give your authority, page and line, I observe. Well, see here, now, Clara mia, in whatever field you found that one odd fact, you certainly gleaned others there, so if you can produce, at once, three other legal statements, I will treat you to soda-water after rehearsal."
Oh, the delicious word was scarcely over his lips when I was wildly searching my memory, and presently, very doubtfully, offered the statement: "It is a fraud to conceal a fraud."
But Uncle Dick gravely and readily accepted it. Another search, and then joyfully I announced: "Contracts made with minors, lunatics, or drunkards are void."
A shout of laughter broke from the kind old man's lips, but he accepted that, too. Oh, almost I could hear the cool hiss of the soda—but now not another thing could I find. My face fell, my heart sank. Hitherto I had been thinking of papers, now I frantically ran through stories. Suddenly I cried: "A lead-pencil signature stands in law."
But, alas! Uncle Dick hesitated—my authority was worthless. Oh, dear! oh, dear! was I to lose my treat, just for lack of a little legal knowledge? Sadly I remarked, "I guess I'll have to give it up, unless—unless you'll take: 'Principals are responsible for their agents,'" and, with pleasure beaming in his kind old eyes, he accepted it.