ed. One
of them, named Sputter, Sir Spigot Sputter, was an old man, with a red
face and perpetual grin, whose white hair was cropped close; but in
compensation for this he wore powder and a queue, so that his head,
except in vivacity of motion, might not inappropriately be compared
to an overgrown tadpole struggling to get free from his shoulders, and
escape to the nearest marsh. He also wore a false eye, which gave him
a perennial blink that was sadly at variance with magisterial dignity.
Indeed the consequences of it were sometimes ludicrous enough. When, for
instance, one of those syrens who perambulate our fashionable streets
after the sun has gone down, happened to be brought up to answer some
charge that came under his jurisdiction, Sir Spigot's custom always was
to put his glass to the safe eye, and peer at her in the dock; which
act, when taken in connection with the grin and the droop of the glass
eye, seemed to the spectators as if he and she understood each other,
and that the wink in question was a kind of telegraphic dispatch sent
to let her know that she had a friend on the bench. Sir Spigot was deaf,
too, a felicitous circumstance, which gave him peculiar facility in the
decision of his cases.

The name of his brother on the bench was Coke, who acted in the capacity
of what is termed a law magistrate. It is enough, however, to say, that
he was a thin man, with a long, dull face, a dull eye, a dull tongue, a
dull ear, and a dull brain. His talents for ambiguity were surprising,
and it always required a hint from the senior of the office, Darby,
to enable him to understand his own decisions. This, however, was not
without some beneficial consequences to the individuals before him; as
it often happened, that when he seemed to have committed some hardened
offender, after the infliction of a long, laborious, obscure harangue,
he has immediately ordered him to be discharged. And, on the contrary,
when some innocent individual heard with delight the sentence of the
court apparently, in his favor, judge of what he must have felt on
finding himself sent off to Newgate, Kilmainham, or the Penitentiary.
In this instance, however, the advantage to the public was nearly equal;
for if the guilty escaped in one case, so did the innocent in another.
Here now is where Darby became useful; for Darby, who was well
acquainted with his style, and with his meaning, when he had any, always
interpreted his decisions to him, and