DANISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES
you. You may present yourself at the time set for the case, but the judge is obliged to wait one hour for my arrival; such is the law. I am always busy, so don't expect me before the hour is out."
At the fixed time the driver promptly put in appearance, explaining that some one would be there to speak for him. So the judge waited and waited, and finally, when the hour was about out the lawyer hastily entered, panting and wiping his forehead, as though he had almost run himself out of breath.
"Are you the lawyer who has undertaken to speak for this man?" asked the judge—sternly, too, for judges don't like to be kept waiting.
"Certainly I am."
"Why did you not come before?" pursued the magistrate; "do you think we have nothing to do but wait for such persons as you?"
The lawyer humbly begged pardon; he had been detained in his cornfields.
"Cornfields!" cried the judge; "why, the corn is not half ripe yet."
"No," admitted the lawyer; "it is not ripe, but I was sowing. I boiled two bushels of corn this morning, and at noon I expect to sow it, in order that it may be ripe and ready for the harvest next week."
These words called forth a roar of laughter in the court-room, and the landlord said that most likely the lawyer had lost his reason, since he sup-
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