n adjoining room, into
which I obtained admission, after a good deal of solicitation and
some very strong appeals to the sacred character of the rights of
hospitality.

It now appeared that, in Leaphigh, the merits of a law are decided on a
principle very similar to the one we employ in England in judging of the
quality of our wines, viz., its age. The older a law, the more it is to
be respected, no doubt because, having proved its fitness by outlasting
all the changes of society, it has become more mellow, if not more
palatable. Now, by a law of Leaphigh that is coeval with the monarchy,
he who offends the queen's majesty at a levee is to lose his head;
and he who, under the same circumstances, offends the king's majesty,
necessarily the more heinous offence, is to lose his tail. In
consequence of the former punishment, the criminal is invariably buried,
and he is consigned to the usual course of monikin regeneration and
resuscitation; but in consequence of the latter, it is thought that
he is completely thrown without the pale of reason, and is thereby
consigned to the class of the retrogressive animals. His mind
diminishes, and his body increases; the brain, for want of the means
of development, takes the ascending movement of sap again; his forehead
dilates; bumps reappear; and, finally, after passing gradually downwards
in the scale of intellect, he becomes a mass of insensible matter. Such,
at least, is the theory of his punishment.

By another law, that is even older than the monarchy, any one who
offends in the king's palace may be tried by a very summary process, the
king's pages acting as his judges; in which case the sentence is to be
executed without delay.

Such was the dilemma to which Noah, by an indiscretion at court, was
suddenly reduced; and, but for my prompt interference, he would probably
have been simultaneously decapitated at both extremities, in obedience
to an etiquette which prescribes that, under the circumstances of a
court trial, neither the king's nor the queen's rights shall be entitled
to precedence. In defence of my client I urged his ignorance of the
usages of the country, and, indeed, of all other civilized countries,
Stunnin'tun alone excepted. I stated that the criminal was an object
altogether unworthy of their notice; that he was not a lord high admiral
at all, but a mere pitiful sealer; I laid some stress on the importance
of maintaining friendly relations with the sealers, who