“You? Not at all; or, if you did perceive it,
I smelt it long before it was in view;
But here’s a lawyer coming—let us leave it
To him to arbitrate between the two.”
The lawyer listens with a stolid face,
Arrives at his decision in a minute;
And, as the shortest way to end the case,
Opens the shell and eats the fish within it.
The rivals look upon him with dismay:—
“This Court,” says he, “awards you each a shell;