Chapter 22 - Page 2

trifling a favor, and the promise was given. The
judge must have run as fast as his legs would carry him; for, in
about ten minutes, he was back again, with a diplomatic recruit. He
told me his heart had misgiven him sadly. The three first to whom he
offered the place had plumply refused it, and, indeed, he did not
know but he should have a quarrel or two on his hands; but, at last,
he had luckily found one who could get nothing else to do, and he
pinned him on the spot.

So far everything had gone on swimmingly; but the new charge had,
most unfortunately, a very long cauda, a fashion that was inexorably
proscribed by the Leaplow usages, except in cases when the
representative went to court; for it seems the Leaplow political
ethics, like your country buck, has two dresses--one for every-day
wear, and one for Sundays. The judge intimated to his intended
substitute, that it was absolutely indispensable he should submit to
an amputation, or he could not possibly confer the appointment,
queues being proscribed at home by both public opinions, the
horizontal and the perpendicular. To this the candidate objected,
that he very well knew the Leaplow usages on this head, but that he
had seen his excellency himself going to court with a singularly
apparent brush; and he had supposed from that, and from sundry other
little occurrences he did not care to particularize, that the
Leaplowers were not so bigoted in their notions but they could act
on the principle of doing at Rome as is done by the Romans. To this
the judge replied, that this principle was certainly recognized in
all things that were agreeable, and that he knew, from experience,
how hard it was to go in a bob, when all around him went in cauda;
but that tails were essentially anti-republican, and, as such, had
been formally voted down in Leaplow, where even the Great Sachem did
not dare to wear one, let him long for it as much as he would; and
if it were known that a public charge offended in this particular,
although he might be momentarily protected by one of the public
opinions, the matter would certainly be taken up by the opposition
public opinion, and then the people might order a new turn of the
little wheel, which heaven it knew! occurred now a great deal
oftener than was either profitable or convenient.

Hereupon the candidate deliberately undid the fastenings and removed
the queue, showing, to our admiration, that it was false, and that
he was, after all neither more nor less than a Leaplower in
masquerade; which, by the way, I afterwards learned, was very apt to
be the case with a great many of that eminently original people,
when they got without the limits of their own beloved land. Judge
People's Friend was now perfectly delighted.