eing a servant in the same family with
Dishclout, and not being at board wages, imagined he had a right to the
fee-simple of the dripping-pan, therefore he made an attachment on the
sop with his right-hand, which the defendant replevied with her left,
tripped us up, and tumbled us into the dripping-pan. Now, in Broughton's
Reports, Slack _versus_ Small wood, it is said that _primus {67}strocus
sine jocus, absolutus est provokus_. Now who gave the _primus strocus?_
who gave the first offence? Why, the cook; she brought the driping-pan
there; for, my Lord, though we will allow, if we had not been there, we
could not have been thrown down there; yet, my Lord, if the dripping-pan
had not been there, for us to have tumbled down into, we could not have
tumbled into the dripping-pan." The next counsel on the same side began
with, "My Lord, he who makes use of many words to no purpose has not
much to say for himself, therefore I shall come to the point at once; at
once and immediately I shall come to the point. My client was in liquor:
the liquor in him having served an ejectment upon his understanding,
common sense was nonsuited, and he was a man beside himself, as Dr.
Biblibus declares, in his Dissertation upon Bumpers, in the 139th folio
volume of the Abridgment of the Statutes, page 1286, where he says, that
a drunken man is _homo duplicans_, or a double man; not only because he
sees things double, but also because he is not as he should be,
_profecto ipse_ he; but is as he should not be, _defecto tipse_ he."

{68}The counsel on the other side rose up gracefully, playing with his
ruffles prettily, and tossing the ties of his wig about emphatically.
He began with, "My Lord, and you, gentlemen of the jury, I humbly do
conceive I have the authority to declare that I am counsel in this case
for the defendant; therefore, my Lord, I shall not flourish away in
words; words are no more than filligree work. Some people may think them
an embellishment; but to me it is a matter of astonishment how any one
can be so impertinent to the detriment of all rudiment. But, my Lord,
this is not to be looked at through the medium of right and wrong; for
the law knows no medium, and {69}right and wrong are but its shadows.
Now, in the first place, they have called a kitchen my client's
premises. Now a kitchen is nobody's premises; a kitchen is not a
warehouse, nor a wash-house, a brew-house, nor a bake-house, an
inn-house, nor an out-house, nor a