"You put me in prison for a month, gentlemen," resumed Reed, paying no attention to the injunction. "They cut my hair close in the prison, and they kept me to hard labour for the month, as if I did not have enough of hard labour out of it. My wife was sick and disabled at the time, my three little children are helpless: it was no thanks to the magistrates who sentenced me, gentlemen, or to Major Parrifer, that they did not starve." "Will you be quiet, Reed?" "If I deserved one month of prison," persisted Reed, fully bent on saying what he had to say, "Major Parrifer must deserve two months, for his offence is greater than mine. The law is the same for both of us, I suppose. He----" "Reed, if you say another word, I will order you at once from the room," interrupted Mr. Brandon, his thin voice sharp and determined. "How dare you persist in addressing the Bench when told to be quiet!" Reed fell back and said no more. He knew that Mr. Brandon had a habit of carrying out his own authority, in spite of his nervous health and querulous way of speaking. The justices spoke a few words together, and then said they found the offence proved, and inflicted a fine on Major Parrifer. He dashed the money down on the table, in too great a rage to do it politely, and went out to his carriage. No other case was on, that day, and the justices got up and mixed with the crowd. Mr. Brandon, who felt chilly on the hottest summer's day, and was afraid of showers, buttoned on a light overcoat. "Then there are _two_ laws, sir?" said Reed to him, quite civilly, but in a voice that every one might hear. "When the law was made against Sabbath-breaking, those that made it passed one for the rich and another for the poor!" "Nonsense, Reed." "_Nonsense_, sir? I don't see it. _I_ was put in prison; Major Parrifer has only to pay a bit of money, which is of no more account to him than dirt, and that he can't feel the loss of. And my offence--if it was an offence--was less than his." "Two wrongs don't make a right," said Mr. Brandon, dropping his voice to a low key. "You ought not to have been put in prison, Reed; had I been on the bench it should not have been done." "But it was done, sir, and my life got a blight on it. It's on me yet; will never be lifted off me." Mr. Brandon smiled one of his quiet smiles, and spoke in a whisper. "He has got it too, Reed, unless I am mistaken. He'll carry that fine about with him always. Johnny, are you there? Don't go and repeat what you've heard me say." Mr. Brandon was right. To have been summoned before the Bench, where he had pompously sat to summon others, and for working on a Sunday above all things, to have been found guilty and fined, was as the most bitter potion to Major Parrifer. The bench would never again be to him the seat it had been; the remembrance of the day when he was before it would, as Mr. Brandon expressed it, be carried about with him always.