“I have no idea.”
“Call it and see if it comes to you, Mighty,” suggests Magpie.
“Like ——!”
“Let the goat loose and see who it goes to,” suggests the judge.
“Whoa!” yelps Mighty. “Don’t do that! I don’t know how he ever got the rope on it, but I do know it’s the champion butter of the world. You stick with it, feller, and get time off for good behavior.”
“This is the same one I had yesterday,” states Ajax. “It—er—struck the sheriff, I believe.”
“Haw! haw! haw!” whoops Magpie. “It upset our sheriff something awful.”
We considers things for a while, and then the judge says:
“According to my own reckoning there ain’t nothing to be done, but I has to pass an opinion. Being as the prisoner, smelling as he does, is of no value to the prosecution, and the plaintiff refuses to take back his alleged property, I adjudicates thusly:
“The prisoner will be banished on his own recognizance. Feller, you better go away off some place. Sabe? Take your clothes and burn ’em and jump in the river or vicy versy. Given under my hand and seal this fifth day of August in the year of our Lord, and the County of Yaller Rock.