“Poh! I don’t desire to hear it. But as you came on business connected with the law, and that business is not a marriage-settlement, what is it? Does old Kingsborough maintain his right to the Harlem lot?”
“No, he has given the claim up, at last. My business, Tom, is of a very different nature. What are we coming to, and what is to be the end of it all!”
As the doctor looked far more than he expressed, Dunscomb was struck with his manner. The Siamese twins scarce understand each other’s impulses and wishes better than these two men comprehended each other’s feelings; and Tom saw at once that Ned was now very much in earnest.
“Coming to?” repeated Dunscomb. “Do you mean the new code, or the ‘Woman-hold-the-Purse Law,’ as I call it? I don’t believe you look far enough ahead to foresee all the damnable consequences of an elective judiciary.”
“It is not that—this, or that—I do not mean codes, constitutions, or pin-money. What is the country coming to, Tom Dunscomb—that is the question, I ask.”
“Well, and has the country nothing to do with constitutions, codes, and elective judges? I can tell you, Master Ned McBrain, M. D., that if the patient is to be saved at all, it must be by means of the judiciary, and I do not like the advice that has just been called in.”
“You are a croaker. They tell me the new judges are reasonably good.”
“‘Reasonably’ is an expressive word. The new judges are old judges, in part, and in so much they do pretty well, by chance. Some of the new judges are excellent—but one of the very best men on the whole bench was run against one of the worst men who could have been put in his place. At the next heat I fear the bad fellow will get the track. If you do not mean what I have mentioned, what do you mean?”
“I mean the increase of crime—the murders, arsons, robberies, and other abominations that seem to take root among us, like so many exotics transplanted to a genial soil.”
“‘Exotics’ and ‘genial’ be hanged! Men are alike everywhere. No one but a fool ever supposed that a republic is to stand, or fall, by its virtue.”