“See now what a train of mischiefs one wretched pettifogger draws after him! If you go to him for counsel, he hears your story, reads your case, and tells you very gravely: ‘Sir, this is a nice point, and would be well handled; we’ll see what the law says.’ And then he runs ye over with his eye and finger a matter of a hundred volumes, grumbling all the while, like a cat that claws in her play ’twixt jest and earnest. At last, down comes the book, he shows the law, bids ye leave your papers, and he’ll study the question. ‘But your cause is very good,’ says he, ‘by what I see already, and if you’ll come again in the evening, or to-morrow morning, I’ll tell ye more. But pardon me, sir, now I think on’t, I am retained upon the business of the Fens, it cannot be till Monday next, and then I’m for ye.’ When ye are to part, and that you come to the greasing of his fist (the best thing in the world both for the wit, and memory), ‘Good Lord! sir,’ says he, ‘what do you mean! I beseech you, sir; nay, pray’e sir,’ and if he spies you drawing back, the paw opens, seizes the guineas, and good-morrow countryman.” “Sayst thou me so?” quoth the good fellow in the glass, “stop me up close again as thou lovest me then: for the very air of these rascals will poison me, if ever I put my head out of this bottle, till the whole race of them be extinct. In the meantime, take this for a rule: he that would thrive by law, must fee his enemies’ counsel as well as his own.
“But now ye talk of great cheats; what news of the Venetians? Is Venice still in the world or no?” “In the world do ye say? Yes, marry is’t,” said I, “and stands just where it did.” “Why then,” quoth he, “I prithee give it to the devil from me as a token of my love; for ’tis a present equal to the severest revenge. Nothing can ever destroy that Republic but conscience; and then you’ll say ’tis like to be long-lived; for if every man had his own, it would not be left worth a groat. To speak freely, ’tis an odd kind of common-wealth. ’Tis the very arse-gut, the drain and sink of monarchies, both in war and peace. It helps the Turk to vex the Christians, and the Christians to gall the Turk, and maintains itself to torment both. The inhabitants are neither Moors nor Christians, as appears by a Venetian captain, in a combat against a Christian enemy: ‘Stand to’t my masters,’ says he, ‘ye were Venetians before ye were Christians.’