t way to _secure his property_. Why have we so
many lawyers, but _to secure our property_? why so many formalities,
but _to secure our property_? Not less than one hundred thousand
families live in opulence, elegance, and ease, merely by _securing our
property_."

"To embarrass justice," returned I, "by a multiplicity of laws, or to
hazard it by a confidence in our judges, are, I grant, the opposite
rocks on which legislative wisdom has ever split; in one case the
client resembles that emperor, who is said to have been suffocated by
the bed-clothes, which were only designed to keep him warm: in the
other, to that town which let the enemy take possession of its walls,
in order to show the world how little they depended upon aught but
courage for safety:----But, bless me, what numbers do I see here--all
in black--how is it possible that half this multitude find
employment?"--"Nothing so easily conceived," returned my companion,
"they live by watching each other. For instance, the catchpole watches
the man in debt; the attorney watches the catchpole; the counsellor
watches the attorney; the solicitor the counsellor; and all find
sufficient employment." "I conceive you," interrupted I, "they watch
each other; but it is the client that pays them all for watching: it
puts me in mind of a Chinese fable, which is intituled, 'Five animals
at a meal.'

"A grasshopper, filled with dew, was merrily singing under a shade; a
whangam, that eats grasshoppers, had marked it for its prey, and was
just stretching forth to devour it; a serpent, that had for a long
time fed only on whangams, was coiled up to fasten on the whangam; a
yellow bird was just upon the wing to dart upon the serpent; a hawk
had just stooped from above to seize the yellow bird; all were intent
on their prey, and unmindful of their danger: so the whangam eat the
grasshopper, the serpent eat the whangam, the yellow bird the serpent,
and the hawk the yellow bird; when sousing from on high, a vulture
gobbled up the hawk, grasshopper, whangam, and all in a moment."

I had scarcely finished my fable, when the lawyer came to inform my
friend that his cause was put off till another term, that money was
wanted to retain, and that all the world was of opinion that the very
next hearing would bring him off victorious. "If so, then," cries my
friend, "I believe it will be my wisest way to continue the cause for
another term, and, in the mean time, my friend here and I will g