off. Besides, there are few that know all the tricks and cheats of these
lawyers. Does not your own experience teach you how they have drawn you
on from one term to another, and how you have danced the round of all
the courts, still flattering you with a final issue; and, for aught I
can see, your cause is not a bit clearer than it was seven years ago."
"I will be hanged," says John, "if I accept of any composition from
Strutt or his grandfather; I'll rather wheel about the streets an engine
to grind knives and scissors. However, I'll take your advice, and look
over my accounts."

* A new Parliament: the aversion of a Tory House of Commons
to war.

CHAPTER XI. How John looked over his Attorney's Bill.*

* Looking over the accounts.

When John first brought out the bills, the surprise of all the family
was unexpressible at the prodigious dimensions of them; they would have
measured with the best bale of cloth in John's shop. Fees to judges,
puny judges, clerks, prothonotaries, philisers, chirographers,
under-clerks, proclamators, counsel, witnesses, jurymen, marshals,
tipstaffs, criers, porters; for enrollings, exemplifications, bails,
vouchers, returns, caveats, examinations, filings of words, entries,
declarations, replications, recordats, nolle prosequies, certioraries,
mittimuses, demurrers, special verdicts, informations, scire facias,
supersedeas, habeas corpus, coach-hire, treating of witnesses, etc.
"Verily," says John, "there are a prodigious number of learned words in
this law; what a pretty science it is!" "Ay but, husband, you have
paid for every syllable and letter of these fine words. Bless me, what
immense sums are at the bottom of the account!" John spent several weeks
in looking over his bills, and, by comparing and stating his accounts,
he discovered that, besides the extravagance of every article, he had
been egregiously cheated; that he had paid for counsel that were never
fee'd, for writs that were never drawn, for dinners that were never
dressed, and journeys that were never made; in short, that the
tradesmen, lawyers, and Frog had agreed to throw the burden of the
lawsuit upon his shoulders.

CHAPTER XII. How John grew angry, and resolved to accept a Composition;
and what Methods were practised by the Lawyers for keeping him from it.*

Well might the learned Daniel Burgess say, "That a lawsuit is a suit for
life. He that sows his grain upon marble will have many a hu