_C. N_. Oh, I think so. I really am a good lawyer. _W. J_. H'm, that would be rather less useful than a dead jackass--unless one came to the conclusion of making cat's meat of you. _C. N_. (_aside_, Oh, I'm sick at heart at his hinted threats). Mr. Socialist, don't you see I could put you up to all sorts of dodges by which you could get hold of odds and ends of property--as I suppose you have some sort of property still--and the titles of the land must be very shaky just after a revolution? I tell you I could put you up to things which would make you a person of great importance; as good as what a lord used to be. _W. J_. (_aside_, Oh, you old blackguard! What's bred in the bone won't come out of the flesh. I really must frighten the old coward a little; besides, the council _has_ got to settle what's to be done with him, or the old idiot will put us to shame by dying on our hands of fright and stupidity.) (_To_ N.) Nupkins, I really don't know what to do with you as a slave; I'm afraid that you would corrupt the morals of my children; that you would set them quarrelling and tell them lies. There's nothing for it but you must come before the Council of our Commune: they'll meet presently under yonder tree this fine day. _C. N_. No, no, don't! Pray let me go and drag out the remainder of a miserable existence without being brought before a magistrate and sent to prison! You don't know what a dreadful thing it is. _W. J_. You're wrong again, Nupkins. I know all about it. The stupid red tape that hinders the Court from getting at the truth; the impossibility of making your stupid judge understand the real state of the case, because he is not thinking of you and your life as a man, but of a set of rules drawn up to allow men to make money of other people's misfortunes; and then to prison with you; and your miserable helplessness in the narrow cell, and the feeling as if you must be stifled; and not even a pencil to write with, or knife to whittle with, or even a pocket to put anything in. I don't say anything about the starvation diet, because other people besides prisoners were starved or half-starved. Oh, Nupkins, Nupkins! it's a pity you couldn't have thought of all this before. _C. N_. (_aside_: Oh, what terrible revenge is he devising for me?) (_to_ W. J.) Sir, sir, let me slip away before the Court meets. (_Aside_: A pretty Court, out in the open-air! Much they'll know about law!) _W. J_. Citizen Nupkins, don't you stir from here! You'll see another old acquaintance presently--Jack Freeman, whom you were sending off to six years of it when the red flag came in that day.--And in good time here he is. [_Enter_ JACK FREEMAN, _sauntering in dressed in a blouse, smoking, a billycock on his head, and his hands in his pockets_.