mandate; and
accordingly, requesting the bearer to convey my compliments to the
assembled council, and to say that I would have the honour of
attending them in a few minutes, I dismissed him, evidently soothed
with my courteous reception. I did this with a view of getting rid of
the _posse comitatus_, in whose company I did not much relish the idea
of being escorted as a prisoner. My politeness, however, had not the
anticipated effect, as, upon emerging from the inn, we found the whole
squad waiting at the door as a sort of body-guard, to make sure of our
attendance.

On arriving at the rathhaus, which was crammed to overflowing with all
the inhabitants of the place who could possibly wedge themselves into
it, way was cleared for us through the crowd to the seats which had
been considerately allotted for us, in front of the tribunal. A more
extraordinary bench of justice was perhaps never convened. It was
plain that the little village was steeped in poverty to the lips, and
that I, having been entrapped, through an unconscious expression, in
the meshes of some antiquated law, was doomed to administer in some
measure to their need by the payment of a penalty and costs. The fat
old fellow who presided as judge, and beneath whose robe of office an
unctuous leathery surtout was all too visible, peered in vain through
a pair of massive horn-spectacles into a huge timber-swathed volume in
search of the act, the provisions of which I had violated. At length,
the schoolmaster--a meagre, pensive-looking scarecrow, industriously
patched all over--came to his assistance, turned over the ponderous
code by which the little community were governed, and having rummaged
out the law, and the clause under the provisions of which I had been
so summarily arrested, handed it to the clerk, who I shrewdly
suspected to be nothing more or less than the village barber. He, at
the command of the judge, read it aloud for the information of all
present, and for my especial admonition. From the contents, it
appeared to have been decreed, how long ago I had no means of judging,
that, for the better sustentation of good morals and good-breeding,
and for the prevention of quarrelling, or unseemly and abusive
conversation, any person who should call or designate any other person
in the said town by the name of thief, villain, rascal, rogue
(schurke), cheat, charlatan, impostor, wretch, coward, sneak,
suborner, slanderer, tattler, and sundry other titl