he saved himself a great
deal of breath in the way of argument out of doors, for he and the rest
of the clientele of this Riddle, having officially invested their patron
with all their own parts, the result had been such an accumulation of
knowledge in this one individual, as enabled them ordinarily to floor
any antagonist by the simple quotation of his authority. Such or such
is the opinion of God-like this or of God-like that, was commonly
sufficient; and then there was no lack of material, for he had taken
care to provide himself with a Riddle who, he really believed, had given
an opinion, at some time or other, on every side of every subject
that had ever been mooted in Leaplow. He could nullify, or mollify, or
qualify, with the best of them; and these, which he termed the three
fies, he believed were the great requisites of a Leaplow legislator.
He admitted, however, that some show of independence was necessary,
in order to give value to the opinion of even a God-like, for monikin
nature revolted at anything like total mental dependence; and that he
had pretty much made up his mind to think for himself on a question that
was to be decided that very day.

The case to which the captain alluded was this. The city of Bivouac was
divided in three pretty nearly equal parts which were separated from
each other by two branches of a marsh; one part of the town being on a
sort of island, and the other two parts on the respective margins of the
low land. It was very desirable to connect these different portions of
the capital by causeways, and a law to that effect had been introduced
in the house. Everybody, in or out of the house, was in favor of the
project, for the causeways had become, in some measure, indispensable.
The only disputed point was the length of the works in question. One who
is but little acquainted with legislation, and who has never witnessed
the effects of an occultation of the great moral postulate Principle, by
the orb Pecuniary Interest, would very plausibly suppose that the whole
affair lay in a nutshell, and that all we had to do was to pass a law
ordering the causeways to extend just as far as the public convenience
rendered it necessary. But these are mere tyros in the affairs of
monikins. The fact was that there were just as many different opinions
and interests at work to regulate the length of the causeways, as there
were, owners of land along their line of route. The great object was to
start i