lamb,' and he puts something privily into my hands; whereupon I
goes close up to the grinning gorgio, and staring him in the face,
with my head pushed forward, I cries out: 'You say I did what was
wrong with you last night when I was out with you abroad?' 'Yes,'
says the local officer, 'I says you did,' looking down all the
time. 'You are a liar,' says I, and forthwith I breaks his head
with the stick which I holds behind me, and which my coko has
conveyed privily into my hand."

"And this is your action at law, Ursula?"

"Yes, brother, this is my action at club-law."

"And would your breaking the fellow's head quite clear you of all
suspicion in the eyes of your batus, cokos, and what not?"

"They would never suspect me at all, brother, because they would
know that I would never condescend to be over-intimate with a
gorgio; the breaking the head would be merely intended to justify
Ursula in the eyes of the gorgios."

"And would it clear you in their eyes?"

"Would it not, brother? when they saw the blood running down from
the fellow's cracked poll on his greens and Lincolns, they would be
quite satisfied; why, the fellow would not be able to show his face
at fair or merry-making for a year and three-quarters."

"Did you ever try it, Ursula?"