Nutts. Why now, I suppose that’s what they’d call a fiction of the law; and when we think what a dry matter all law is, can we wonder that the ’torneys and such folks spice it up with a few lies? Bless you, if all law was all true, nobody would go on swallowing it. It’s the precious fibs that’s in it that gives it a flavour, and makes men live, and grow fat upon it.
Slowgoe. It can’t be.
Nutts. Tell you ’tis. Was you never on a jury? La! bless you, when one of the gen’lemen of the long robe, as they call ’em—one of the conjurors in horse-hair—get hold of a fib, or a flaw, or a something to bring a blush into the face of Common-sense, and so put her out of court at once—doesn’t he enjoy it? Doesn’t he relish the fiction, as it’s called, as if it was his first “Goody Two Shoes”? He relishes it; all the bar—’xcept, perhaps, the conjuror against him—relishes it, and the judge himself. Oh! haven’t I seen him with the wrinkles about his eyes like the map of England; haven’t I seen him relish it too, for all the world like an old sporting dog that had given up hunting himself, but still did so love the smell of the game!
Tickle. I tell you what it is, Nutts, I feel my blood a-gettin’ vinegar all the while I hear you. I feel a-changing from a man to a cruet; and I won’t have it. You are so sour, you’d pickle salmon to look at it. Nosebag, tell us something pleasant. What have they done at the playhouse this week?
Nosebag. Why, there’s been Miss Faucit at the Hayma’ket, but only for one night. Your very great players now, they’re like the new aloe at the Colossyum; they only blossom once in a hundred years, or somethin’ of that sort. London’s gettin’ low for ’em, I s’pose. I have heard—though I know nothin’ about what you call the currency—I have heard that there isn’t, for any long time, ready gold enough in the country to pay ’em.
Tickle. Couldn’t they take ’Chequer bills?
Nosebag. Why, I believe they was offered to a singer last week; but he wouldn’t have ’em, ’cause he’d no faith in the Government.
Tickle. Well, and how did the young lady go off?
Nosebag. Never go to a benefit, for fear I should be taken for a private friend of the actors. But I’m told the—the—what is it?—the fibula was another tremendous hit.
Limpy. (Rising.) That will do, Mr Nutts. What’s the fibular?