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A CORNER IN JURISDICTION

volume to the list of quotations from foreign languages—'must be similia similibus curantur, or of a like nature, or in the nature of a signature on a cow. Of course, a man would sign his name differently when writing on a cow than he would in using a fountain-pen on super-linen bond. Ahem!'

"And as a husky wight beat a cripple across the road to the tavern, where, from my elevated position, I could see they were drinking nervously from a bottle, Mr. Bilger arose and joyously proclaimed: 'The only thing for them to do is to swear in an expert on cow-writing.'

"'An' on hosses, too,' supplemented the hired man.

"I could now see Tib was in pretty deep water, and that the responsibility was wearing on him, and while motioning me to look up some more phrases to have on friendly tap he tried to shift the line of thought by ruling that in the future the impatient and initialled beasts should be referred to as such and such a clause in the will, or as a codicil.

"By this time, sir, we had the weather-beaten, bewhiskered audience in a sickly trance, and old Deacon Mumby limped out to gather new wisdom across the road. And as he blindly paused and attempted to foregather the age of Codicil Number One by looking at his teeth, he received a severe kick which led him to belabor the poor brute with

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