ion? I tell you I could put you up to things
which would make you a person of great importance; as good as what a lord
used to be.

_W. J_. (_aside_, Oh, you old blackguard! What's bred in the bone won't
come out of the flesh. I really must frighten the old coward a little;
besides, the council _has_ got to settle what's to be done with him, or
the old idiot will put us to shame by dying on our hands of fright and
stupidity.) (_To_ N.) Nupkins, I really don't know what to do with you
as a slave; I'm afraid that you would corrupt the morals of my children;
that you would set them quarrelling and tell them lies. There's nothing
for it but you must come before the Council of our Commune: they'll meet
presently under yonder tree this fine day.

_C. N_. No, no, don't! Pray let me go and drag out the remainder of a
miserable existence without being brought before a magistrate and sent to
prison! You don't know what a dreadful thing it is.

_W. J_. You're wrong again, Nupkins. I know all about it. The stupid
red tape that hinders the Court from getting at the truth; the
impossibility of making your stupid judge understand the real state of
the case, because he is not thinking of you and your life as a man, but
of a set of rules drawn up to allow men to make money of other people's
misfortunes; and then to prison with you; and your miserable helplessness
in the narrow cell, and the feeling as if you must be stifled; and not
even a pencil to write with, or knife to whittle with, or even a pocket
to put anything in. I don't say anything about the starvation diet,
because other people besides prisoners were starved or half-starved. Oh,
Nupkins, Nupkins! it's a pity you couldn't have thought of all this
before.

_C. N_. (_aside_: Oh, what terrible revenge is he devising for me?) (_to_
W. J.) Sir, sir, let me slip away before the Court meets. (_Aside_: A
pretty Court, out in the open-air! Much they'll know about law!)

_W. J_. Citizen Nupkins, don't you stir from here! You'll see another
old acquaintance presently--Jack Freeman, whom you were sending off to
six years of it when the red flag came in that day.--And in good time
here he is.

[_Enter_ JACK FREEMAN, _sauntering in dressed in a blouse, smoking, a
billycock on his head, and his hands in his pockets_.

_W. J_. There's your judge, Citizen Nupkins! No, Jack, you needn't take
your hands out of your pockets to shake hands with me; I know your ways
a