"Sir," I cried, "Reuben Baker is not a name to be ashamed of, and if you think that by any of your underhand hocus pocus you can trespass on my premises and prevent my caring for my own property you are grandly mistaken."
"You 'll sing a different song to-morrer," said the fellow, and I am sure I heard him chuckling to himself as he walked away.
Later in the day I learned from neighbor Baylor that I had indeed transgressed the law by operating the lawn hose at ten o'clock in the morning. It seems that there is an ordinance imposing a fine upon all who sprinkle their lawns between eight o'clock in the morning and five o'clock in the afternoon.
I declared in very vigorous English that I would never submit to any such outrage, and my indignation touched the boiling point when, still later in the day, a policeman came to my house and handed me a document apprising me that I must give a good and sufficient bond for my appearance the next morning before his honor, Justice Fatty, to answer to the charge of having maliciously, etc., defied, disobeyed and broken the ordinance, etc. I went at once to seek the counsel of Lawyer Miles, for whose legal acumen and forensic eloquence I had harbored the profoundest veneration ever since I had heard his prosecution of a man named Tackleton for causing the death of neighbor Baylor's pet dog. I recall that on that occasion there was not a dry eye in the court and that even the defendant himself wept copiously; whereupon the presiding justice, fearing that he might be unduly influenced by the emotion of the auditors, ordered the constable to clear the room of everybody not a party to the cause. At this supreme moment Lawyer Miles, with streaming eyes and amid choking sobs, cried out: "Mercy, your honor; in the name of the tenderest and holiest of human considerations I appeal for mercy! Turn out the men-folks if you will, but spare, oh, spare the women and children."
Ever since this memorable occasion I have regarded Lawyer Miles as the foremost of living jurists, and it was the most natural thing in the world that I should determine to confide to him any legal business of mine that might arise--in which determination I was confirmed by a suspicion that Lawyer Miles never charged his neighbors any fee for his professional services.