The justice took no further notice of honest Tom's not very complimentary remark than to cast at him a look of angry surprise, which the other endured with complete indifference.
"So," continued Squire Miller, "Pond went to Lawyer Tippit, and he brought the suit before me. Backus pleaded his own case, but he had a fool for a client; the law was all against him, and I had to fine him a dollar and cost."
"That's considerable to pay," exclaimed Tom, "just for skinning such a fellow's nose as Sam Pond's (I've heard of the case afore), but you ain't said nothing, squire, about calling a man a liar."
"Well," said Squire Miller, "that's what we call a mute point. I heard the affirmative and negative argued once by Lawyer Ketchum and Lawyer Tippit. Lawyer Tippit was the affirmative, and Lawyer Ketchum the negative. Lawyer Tippit's principle was in medio pessimus ibis, while Lawyer Ketchum held qui facit per alien facit per se. They, therefore, couldn't agree, they were so wide apart, you see. So they separated without either giving up, though I think Lawyer Tippit had a little the best of the argument."
"Lawyer Tippit knows a thing or two," said the fisherman, in a low tone.
Here Squire Miller handed to Mr. Jenkins twelve and a half cents, for the four glasses of Jamaica he had drank, a portion of which some way or other seemed to have got into his last speech, and took his leave.
He had hardly left the store when who should come in but Constable Basset, bearing in his hand a black staff, "having a head with the arms of the State thereon," the badge of his office, as provided by law, and which he was required to carry "upon proper occasions." Some such occasion had, in the judgment of the constable, evidently arisen, else it would not now be forthcoming.
He was a bullet-headed, carroty-haired little fellow, with a snub nose and eyes so diminutive and deeply sunken, that but for the sparks of light they emitted, they would have been undiscernible. The expression of his face was like that of a wiry terrier, being derived partly from his occupation, which, in his opinion, required him to be as vigilant in spying out offenders as the aforesaid peppery animal, in scenting vermin, and being partly the gift of nature. But though the person of Basset was small, such was not his opinion of himself. That was in an inverse ratio to his size, and at once the source of his highest joys, and, sooth to say, of an occasional mortification. But the former greatly preponderated, and, on the whole, it was a pleasure to a benevolent mind to look at him, if for no other reason than to consider how much enjoyment there may be in ignorance.
As soon as Gladding set his eyes on the constable, he hailed him:
"Here, Basset," he cried, "what are you going to do this morning with that are stick?"