Experientia docet stultos!_ Pass out that pair of
shoes!"

A voice of a woman crying was heard, and Van Dorn and Levin both leaped
out to look.

Hulda also stepped down and disappeared.

A woman, barely able to stand up, and white as illness and anguish could
make her, had staggered to the door to beg that her shoes be given back,
and pointed to her naked feet.

"Now she's off the bed, levy on that!" cried the military figure with
the long, eloquent face and twinkling eyes; "shove it out the window.
Mind your _fi. fa._ and I'll take care of the quotient."

"Have mercy!" cried the woman; "my child was only born last week."

"Fling out that good chair there, constable. Levy on the green chest!
Don't you see a whole quilt or blanket anywhere! Allow neither tret nor
suttle when you serve a writ for Isaac and Jacob Cannon!"

"Where shall I lie with my babe?" cried the poor woman, looking around
on the naked cabin, where neither bed, nor blanket, nor chair, nor
chest, nor spinning-wheel remained.

"_Li-vari facias!_ and _fi-eri facias!_ If there's a mistake a replevin
lies, but no mistakes are made by Isaac and Jacob Cannon. Constable, I
think I see an iron pot on that crane!"

"It's got meat in it, sir--meat a-bilin'," answered the constable.

"Turn out the meat! Levy on the pot! Make the quotient accurate!
Eliminate the pot from the equation!"

Out came the pot, as the material boiling in it put out the October
fire, and it was thrown in the miscellaneous heap at Jacob Cannon's
feet.

"Now take the cradle, hard-hearted man," the woman cried, "and turn the
baby into the fire, too, since I can cook nothing to make its milk in my
breasts."

"Is the cradle worth anything, constable?" asked the magnificent-looking
man with the gray silvery lights around his horsy nose; "if it's worth
taking, I want it. People who can't pay their debts must live single
like Jacob Cannon, and not be distrained."

A boy, with his face scratched, and dissipation settled in it, bounded
suddenly into the aghast group of spectators, and made a vicious dive to
recover the effects around Jacob Cannon's feet, but that mighty worthy
took him by the collar and, holding him up, dropped him over a fence
like a bug:

"Owen Daw, here be witnesses to an assault _insultus_, actionable as a
trespass _vi_, the quotient whereof is damages or the equivalent in
Georgetown jail. Take heed, good citizens, and especially I note you,
Captain Van Dorn.