you know," pursued the Judge, talking to Karl, but keeping
his eyes intently fixed on Ashburner, "do you know that I can almost
always tell a foreigner as soon I see him? Why it was only yesterday a
couple of fellows came into the field where I was, and wanted work, and
before they said a word, just as soon as I saw them I knew they were
Englishmen, and told Mary so."

Ashburner colored a little at this implied comparison, and felt annoyed
on seeing that Harry Benson was enjoying the joke. To turn the
conversation, he said something about the Judge's having a pretty place,
and inquired whether his judicial duties allowed him to be there a good
deal of the time. At this inquiry all three gentlemen laughed, and his
honor explained that once upon a time he had been appointed judge by the
governor, and had acted as such for four or five years, but that for the
last fifteen years he had merely enjoyed the title, and was but a plain
country gentleman, as he had been all his life. Ashburner inquired if he
had not been educated for the bar. "Oh, no," said the Judge, smiling,
"that was not at all necessary for a judge of the Common Pleas, though
for that matter, as Edmund Burke said in his speech on American affairs,
'in America every man's something of a lawyer.' You see, Mr. Ashburner,
there used to be five of us. Some were farmers and some were lawyers,
always one or the other, for the pay was not very high, and nobody but
farmers and lawyers have time to work for nothing in this country. By
the bye," said the Judge, "I never knew any one yet a judge of the
Common Pleas, unless he was either a lawyer or a farmer: did you,
Benson?" Karl answered in the negative, and the Judge continued: "If
there were any cases before us that were of importance, the lawyers
would carry them up to the Supreme Court. But I never could discover
that it made much difference who were judges in the Common Pleas, for
the judges who were lawyers would have their opinions reversed just
about as often as we farmers. I suppose you English gentlemen would
think it a great piece of nonsense, taking three or four men for judges
who had never practised at the bar; but the truth is, that such men look
closely at the real justice of the matter, and pay very little
attention to technicalities, while your second-rate lawyers if they are
made judges in an inferior court, study nothing but technicalities, and
misapply them half the time besides. Then you see we wan