aid that the sturdy common sense of the public
was against Priam. For the majority, the entire story was fishily
preposterous. It must surely be clear to the feeblest brain that if
Priam possessed moles he would expose them. The minority, who talked of
psychology and the artistic temperament, were regarded as the cousins of
Little Englanders and the direct descendants of pro-Boers.

Still, the thing ought to be proved or disproved.

Why didn't the judge commit him for contempt of court? He would then be
sent to Holloway and be compelled to strip--and there you were!

Or why didn't Oxford hire some one to pick a quarrel with him in the
street and carry the quarrel to blows, with a view to raiment-tearing?

A nice thing, English justice--if it had no machinery to force a man to
show his neck to a jury! But then English justice _was_ notoriously
comic.

And whole trainfuls of people sneered at their country's institution in
a manner which, had it been adopted by a foreigner, would have plunged
Europe into war and finally tested the blue-water theory. Undoubtedly
the immemorial traditions of English justice came in for very severe
handling, simply because Priam would not take his collar off.

And he would not.

The next morning there were consultations in counsel's rooms, and the
common law of the realm was ransacked to find a legal method of
inspecting Priam's moles, without success. Priam arrived safely at the
courts with his usual high collar, and was photographed thirty times
between the kerb and the entrance hall.

"He's slept in it!" cried wags.

"Bet yer two ter one it's a clean 'un!" cried other wags. "His missus
gets his linen up."

It was subject to such indignities that the man who had defied the
Supreme Court of Judicature reached his seat in the theatre. When
solicitors and counsel attempted to reason with him, he answered with
silence. The rumour ran that in his hip pocket he was carrying a
revolver wherewith to protect the modesty of his neck.

The celebrated artistes, having perceived the folly of losing six or
seven hundred pounds a day because Priam happened to be an obstinate
idiot, continued with the case. For Mr. Oxford and another army of
experts of European reputation were waiting to prove that the pictures
admittedly painted after the burial in the National Valhalla, were
painted by Priam Farll, and could have been painted by no other. They
demonstrated this by internal evidence. In othe