t you on the race-course the next day, and boast of receiving
favours which he never had, amidst a knot of jeering militia-men, how
would you proceed, Ursula? would you not be abashed?"

"By no means, brother; I should bring my action of law against him."

"Your action at law, Ursula?"

"Yes, brother; I should give a whistle, whereupon all one's cokos and
batus, and all my near and distant relations, would leave their fiddling,
dukkerin, and horse-dealing, and come flocking about me. 'What's the
matter, Ursula?' says my coko. 'Nothing at all,' I replies, 'save and
except that gorgio, in his greens and his Lincolns, says that I have
played the . . . with him.' 'Oho, he does, Ursula,' says my coko; 'try
your action of law against him, my lamb,' and he puts something privily
into my hands; whereupon I goes close up to the grinning gorgio, and
staring him in the face, with my head pushed forward, I cries out: 'You
say I did what was wrong with you last night when I was out with you
abroad?' 'Yes,' says the local officer, 'I says you did,' looking down
all the time. 'You are a liar,' says I, and forthwith I breaks his head
with the stick which I holds behind me, and which my coko has conveyed
privily into my hand."

"And this is your action at law, Ursula?"

"Yes, brother, this is my action at club-law."

"And would your breaking the fellow's head quite clear you of all
suspicion in the eyes of your batus, cokos, {301} and what not?"

"They would never suspect me at all, brother, because they would know
that I would never condescend to be over intimate with a gorgio; the
breaking the head would be merely intended to justify Ursula in the eyes
of the gorgios."

"And would it clear you in their eyes?"

"Would it not, brother? When they saw the blood running down from the
fellow's cracked poll on his greens and Lincolns, they would be quite
satisfied; why, the fellow would not be able to show his face at fair or
merry-making for a year and three quarters."

"Did you ever try it, Ursula?"

"Can't say I ever did, brother, but it would do."

"And how did you ever learn such a method of proceeding?"

"Why, 'tis advised by gypsy liri, {302a} brother. It's part of our way
of settling difficulties amongst ourselves; for example, if a young Roman
were to say the thing which is not respecting Ursula and himself, Ursula
would call a great meeting of the people, who would all sit down in a
ring, the young fellow amon