“In the English case I mentioned, the man got an injunction from the Court of Chancery to restrain the noise; but in another case in North Carolina,[397] where a most pious member of a Methodist church was indicted for disturbing divine service by singing in such a way that one part of the congregation laughed, and the other part got mad—the irreligious and frivolous enjoyed it as fun, while the serious and devout were indignant—although the jury found the man guilty, the court reversed the verdict, as the brother did not desire to disturb the worship but was religiously doing his best. So here our poor neighbor is doing what he can to produce a ‘concord of sweet sounds.’ On another occasion, the judges in the same State held that the noise of a drum or fife in a procession was not a nuisance.[398] But then the wearers of the ermine in that State seem almost indifferent to sounds of any kind; for about the same time, they decided that profane swearing was not a nuisance, unless it was loud and long continued.”[399]
“What had we better do?” persisted Mrs. Lawyer. “Either he must leave, or we must bid goodbye to these premises.”
“Get the landlady to give him notice to quit; then if he won’t go peaceably, she can bundle him out neck and crop.”[400]
“She will promise to do so, and that will be the end of it,” said the acidulous lady.
“In Massachusetts, where a lodger was disturbed by the lodger in the room below singing hymns by no means of the Moody & Sankey style, and the landlord promised to get the musician out, but failed to do so, the Supreme Court held that the aggrieved boarder could not insist upon a diminution of his weekly bills on account of the disagreeable singing.[401] But, my dear, will you come and take a walk with me?”
Off we started countrywards, and —— walked. When we were returning, it was dark and late. “The night air was soft and balmy; the night odors sweet and soul-entrancing; there were no listeners save the grasshoppers and the night-moths with folded wings among the flower-beds of the cottages, and no on-lookers save the silent stars and jeweled-eyed frogs upon the path staring at us” with all their might and main. So we gossiped until we entered the city once again, and then the odors changed; listeners and lookers-on became numerous; the stars were eclipsed by flaming gas; the frogs gave place to gaping gamins.
* * * * * *
As it has to be mentioned, and there is no reason why it should not be mentioned just here, I may state (as a hint to those who keep boarders) that Judge Coleridge once remarked that if a boarding-house keeper neglected to give a boarder a dry bed or wholesome food, and in consequence thereof the latter became sick, it could not be doubted but that the landlord might be compelled to make compensation in damages to the sufferer. His lordship also went on to say, in effect, that if the White Hart Inn, High-street, Borough, had been a boarding-house, and Sam Weller had given the wooden leg of number six to thirteen, and the pair of Hessians of thirteen to number six; or the two pairs of halves of the commercial to the snuggery inside the bar, and the painted tops of the snuggery to the commercial, so that any of those worthies had been damnified, then the bustling old landlady of that establishment would have had to comfort her guests in a more substantial manner than she did when she titillated the nose of the spinster aunt.[402]
Chapter X.
MORE ABOUT BOARDING-HOUSE KEEPERS.
Again it was night. All the boarders were assembled around the tea-table; not exactly, however, as Dr. Talmage would wish, for he said that you should be seated wide enough apart to have room to take out your handkerchief if you want to cry at any pitiful story, or to spread yourself in laughter if someone propound an irresistible conundrum.