oceedings with irrelevant
remarks. The luckless gentleman who, in accordance with my will as Lord
Chief Justice, has just had the happiness to part with his head was so
inconsiderate as to take the life of a fellow-subject."

"But he was insane," I persisted, "clearly and indisputably _ptig nupy
uggydug_!"--a phrase imperfectly translatable, meaning, as near as may be,
having flitter-mice in his campanile.

"Am I to infer," said the Lord Chief Justice, "that in your own honorable
country a person accused of murder is permitted to plead insanity as a
reason why he should not be put to death?"

"Yes, illustrious one," I replied, respectfully, "we regard that as a good
defense."

"Well," said he slowly, but with extreme emphasis, "I'll be _Gook
swottled_!"

("_Gook_," I may explain, is the name of the Batrugian chief deity; but
for the verb "to swottle" the English tongue has no equivalent. It seems
to signify the deepest disapproval, and by a promise to be "_swottled_" a
Batrugian denotes acute astonishment.)

"Surely," I said, "so wise and learned a person as you cannot think it
just to punish with death one who does not know right from wrong. The
gentleman who has just now renounced his future believed himself to have
been commanded to do what he did by a brass-headed cow and four bushels of
nightingales' eggs--powers to which he acknowledged a spiritual
allegiance. To have disobeyed would have been, from his point of view, an
infraction of a law higher than that of man."

"Honorable but erring stranger," replied the famous jurist, "if we
permitted the prisoner in a murder trial to urge such a consideration as
that--if our laws recognized any other justification than that he believed
himself in peril of immediate death or great bodily injury--nearly all
assassins would make some such defense. They would plead insanity of some
kind and degree, and it would be almost impossible to establish their
guilt. Murder trials would be expensive and almost interminable, defiled
with perjury and sentiment. Juries would be deluded and confused, justice
baffled, and red-handed man-killers turned loose to repeat their crimes
and laugh at the law. Even as the law is, in a population of only one
hundred million we have had no fewer than three homicides in less than
twenty years! With such statutes and customs as yours we should have had
at least twice as many. Believe me, I know my people; they have not the
American respect for h