e.

"Gentlemen," he said, "as I have come unprepared for this pleasure, I
shall have to fall back on story-telling. In the small hours, one morning,
two men who had been having rather too good a time were navigating from
street corner to street corner. Said Smith, 'Jonesh, shtime to go home.
Shgetting broad daylight. Theresh sun shining up there.'

"'No, Shmith,' replied Jones, 'you're mistaken. Tha'sh moon up there, and
it's night.' They staggered down the street, Smith insisting that it was
day, Jones insisting that it was night, until they met a fellow inebriate
clinging to a fire plug. To him they appealed their dispute. He heard them
out, and then looked thoughtfully up at the moon. For a long time he
puzzled over the problem, and finally, giving it up, turned to them and
said politely, 'Gentlemen, you'll have to 'scuse me. I'm a stranger in
town.'

"And, gentlemen," said Bassett, again looking about from face to face,
"you'll have to excuse me. I'm a stranger in town."

Judge Wilfley began by calling upon every American lawyer who was
practicing in Shanghai to bring a certificate of good moral character and
to pass an examination before he could be admitted to practice in the new
court. The examination was given, and only two of the lawyers passed. At
once there was a hubbub. The judge was attacked hotly. One of the lawyers
who failed to pass hurried over to this country, making a speech at
Honolulu, on the way, in which he insinuated charges of corruption against
Judge Wilfley. Shortly after his arrival at San Francisco, he prevailed
upon the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, on the Pacific Coast, to reverse
one of Judge Wilfley's decisions without having the facts of the whole
case in hand and without a hearing from the China court. He went on to
Washington, and within a month or two last winter actually got a bill
through the United States Senate reinstating all the disqualified lawyers.
The bill is before the House at this present session. He has conducted a
newspaper campaign against Judge Wilfley in this country since his return
last year. It seems only fair to call attention to these facts on a
fearless and able man, because Judge Wilfley is too hard at work in a
distant country to be able to defend himself. In the course of my travels
from port to port last year, it became clear to me that this new court was
the one uplifting factor in a distressing general condition.

Judge Wilfley, like his district at