“I be,” says Mr. Atkins.
“You’re charged with being a vagrant. Guilty or not guilty?”
“Wa-al,” says Mr. Atkins, looking like a banker that was thinking about lending fifty thousand dollars, “there’s two ways of lookin’ at it.”
“What two ways?” says Mr. Gage.
“If you look at it from the point of view that what I’m doin’ makes me a vagrant, then I be one; but if you look at it from the point of view that what I’m doin’ don’t make me a vagrant, then I hain’t.”
I looked back, and you could see heads nodding all over the room. Those words of Mr. Atkins’s coming right out of that kind of whiskers sounded as if they were a little wiser than Solomon.
“What do you think?” says the judge.
“I think I hain’t,” says Mr. Atkins.
“Defendant pleads not guilty,” says Mr. Gage. “Town-marshal Piddlecomb, take the stand.”
The town marshal shuffled up and sat down and lifted up his hand and swore he would tell the truth.