“Do you move, Mr. Jones?”
O the prosaic Jones!—“don’t you move?”
Yes, he does; he partly rises, ducks his head, and elevates the hinder portion of his person, and his movement ceases. And the question is repeated to Mr. Quick. “Do you move, Mr. Quick?”
Then I saw Mr. Bumpkin again, just as Mr. Quick ducked his head and elevated his back.
And then some gentleman actually moved in real earnest upon these interesting facts:—A farmer’s bull—just the very case for Mr. Bumpkin—had strayed from the road and gone into another man’s yard, and upset a tub of meal; was then driven into a shed and locked up. The owner of the bull came up and demanded that the animal should be released. “Not without paying two pounds,” said the meal-owner. The bull owner paid it under protest, and summoned the meal-owner to the County Court for one pound seventeen shillings and sixpence, the difference between the damage done (which was really about twopence) and the money paid to redeem
the bull. Judgment for the plaintiff. Motion for new trial, or to enter verdict for the defendant, on the ground that the meal man could charge what he liked.
One of the learned Judges asked:
“Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Smiles, that if a man has a bull, and that bull goes into a yard and eats some meal out of a meal-tub, and the damage amounts to twopence, and the owner of the bull says ‘here’s your twopence,’ that the owner of the meal can say, “No, I want a hundred pounds, and shall take your bull damage feasant,” and then takes him and locks him up, and the owner of the bull pays the hundred pounds, he cannot afterwards get the money back?”
“That is so,” says the learned counsel, “such is the law.” And then he cited cases innumerable to prove that it was the law.
“Well,” said the Judge, “unless you show me a case of a bull and a meal-tub, I shall not pay attention to any case—must be a meal-tub.”