ARG. No, I tell you; I prefer going to law.

SCA. Ah! Sir, what are you talking about, and what a resolution you
are going to take. Just cast a glance on the ins and outs of justice,
look at the number of appeals, of stages of jurisdiction; how many
embarrassing procedures; how many ravening wolves through whose claws
you will have to pass; serjeants, solicitors, counsel, registrars,
substitutes, recorders, judges and their clerks. There is not one of
these who, for the merest trifle, couldn't knock over the best case
in the world. A serjeant will issue false writs without your knowing
anything of it. Your solicitor will act in concert with your
adversary, and sell you for ready money. Your counsel, bribed in the
same way, will be nowhere to be found when your case comes on, or
else will bring forward arguments which are the merest shooting in
the air, and will never come to the point. The registrar will issue
writs and decrees against you for contumacy. The recorder's clerk
will make away with some of your papers, or the instructing officer
himself will not say what he has seen, and when, by dint of the
wariest possible precautions, you have escaped all these traps, you
will be amazed that your judges have been set against you either by
bigots or by the women they love. Ah! Sir, save yourself from such a
hell, if you can. 'Tis damnation in this world to have to go to law;
and the mere thought of a lawsuit is quite enough to drive me to the
other end of the world.

ARG. How much does he want for the mule?

SCA. For the mule, for his horse and that of his servant, for the
harness and pistols, and to pay a little something he owes at the
hotel, he asks altogether two hundred pistoles, Sir.