I think some of our laws are pretty unfair. For instance, if I do a thing which ought to deliver me to the stocks, and you know I did it and yet keep still and don’t report me, you will get the stocks if anybody informs on you.”

“Ah, but that would serve you but right,” said Dowley, “for you must inform. So saith the law.”

The others coincided.

“Well, all right, let it go, since you vote me down. But there’s one thing which certainly isn’t fair. The magistrate fixes a mechanic’s wage at one cent a day, for instance. The law says that if any master shall venture, even under utmost press of business, to pay anything over that cent a day, even for a single day, he shall be both fined and pilloried for it; and whoever knows he did it and doesn’t