Ashburner colored a little at this implied comparison, and felt annoyed on seeing that Harry Benson was enjoying the joke. To turn the conversation, he said something about the Judge's having a pretty place, and inquired whether his judicial duties allowed him to be there a good deal of the time. At this inquiry all three gentlemen laughed, and his honor explained that once upon a time he had been appointed judge by the governor, and had acted as such for four or five years, but that for the last fifteen years he had merely enjoyed the title, and was but a plain country gentleman, as he had been all his life. Ashburner inquired if he had not been educated for the bar. "Oh, no," said the Judge, smiling, "that was not at all necessary for a judge of the Common Pleas, though for that matter, as Edmund Burke said in his speech on American affairs, 'in America every man's something of a lawyer.' You see, Mr. Ashburner, there used to be five of us. Some were farmers and some were lawyers, always one or the other, for the pay was not very high, and nobody but farmers and lawyers have time to work for nothing in this country. By the bye," said the Judge, "I never knew any one yet a judge of the Common Pleas, unless he was either a lawyer or a farmer: did you, Benson?" Karl answered in the negative, and the Judge continued: "If there were any cases before us that were of importance, the lawyers would carry them up to the Supreme Court. But I never could discover that it made much difference who were judges in the Common Pleas, for the judges who were lawyers would have their opinions reversed just about as often as we farmers. I suppose you English gentlemen would think it a great piece of nonsense, taking three or four men for judges who had never practised at the bar; but the truth is, that such men look closely at the real justice of the matter, and pay very little attention to technicalities, while your second-rate lawyers if they are made judges in an inferior court, study nothing but technicalities, and misapply them half the time besides. Then you see we want cheap expeditious courts for the trial of small cases--whether the court is wrong or right is not so much matter--law is a lottery anyhow, and the fact is, the sooner a case is decided and out of the way, the better for both parties. I never knew myself of any man's making a fortune by going to law, though I have heard of such things. But I suppose, Mr. Ashburner, that you much prefer the old-fashioned English courts, with the judges in gowns and wigs, and every thing done in the most solemn manner. Now, to tell the truth, Mr. Ashburner, don't you think it great nonsense for us to have one or two plain business men like me, hoisted on to the bench to administer laws which Coke and Blackstone studied for a lifetime, and which in your own country no one is thought fit to administer them till he has spent years in practising, and has raised himself up by his own labors?"