Our position changed and so did the subject.

* * * * * *

The next day when we went over for our horses we found a most interesting discussion going on between the landlord and a man of a class somewhat too common in these hard times, an impecunious lawyer, concerning the right of the former to detain the horse of the latter for the hotel bill of the owner.

“You can’t do it,” said the poverty-stricken disciple of Coke. “No innkeeper can detain the other goods and chattels of a guest for payment of the expenses of a horse, nor a horse for the expenses of the guest. You can only keep my horse for the price of its own meat, and that has been paid for.[329] If a man brought several horses to your old inn, each one could be detained only for its own keep, and not for that of the others; and if you let the owner take away all but one, you could not keep that one until your whole bill was paid, but you would have to give it up on tender of the amount due for its keep.[330] Hullo!” he added, as he saw me, “here’s a gentleman who knows all about such things. “Is not what I state correct?” he coolly asked.

“Certainly,” I said, turning to the landlord. “Mr. Blackstone’s law is better than his pay; though, perhaps, Mr. Story may be said to doubt his last statement.”[331]

“But,” said Boniface, a short, fat man, made without any apparent neck at all—only head and shoulders like a codfish—“but the rascal did not pay me for the last time he put up his old beast here, and I’ll keep it now till I am paid or till it dies, which latter event will probably happen first to such a bag of bones.”

“You can’t do that, old boy,” said Mr. B., delightedly.

“He is right again,” I replied. “If you let a guest take away his horse, unless, indeed, he merely takes it out for exercise, day by day, animo revertendi,[332] it amounts to giving him credit and a relinquishment of your right of lien, so that you can’t afterwards retake it. And even if the man was to come back and run up another account for the keep of his horse, although you might detain it for the latter debt, you could not for the former.”[333]

“But have I no lien upon the horse of a guest? Besides, I did not let him take it away. He went off with it at daybreak, before any one was up, the villain,” said mine host, waxing more and more wrathy as the thought of past grievances recurred to him.

“He, he, he!” laughed B. “You might have retaken it if you had been spry enough, and then you might have kept it; but now it’s too late, too late, too late, as the song says.”[334]

“Exactly so,” I added. “Of course, my dear sir, there is little doubt but what you have a right to detain a horse, brought to you by a traveler, for its keep.[335] And if you kept that old nag you would have a perfect right to continue to charge for the food supplied from day to day, while it remained in your possession, and that although Mr. B. distinctly told you that he would not be responsible for anything supplied to his horse; because otherwise your security would soon be reduced to the value of an old hide and bones.[336] But then cui bono?”

“What’s that?” asked the astonished innkeeper.

“I mean, what would you gain by the additional outlay of good fodder?” I explained.

“Why, I would make the old thing work!” replied the man.

“No, indeed!” said Blackstone. “You would have no right to ride on my horse, or use him for your own benefit in any way.”[337]

“You would have no more right to use it for your own pleasure and benefit than a man who distrains a cow for rent has to enjoy the fruits of her ruminations. You could only ride the horse for the purpose of preserving its health by proper exercise,”[338] I remarked.

“I am dashed if I’d do that,” cried the publican, waxing fierce.

“You would have to do it,”[339] shrieked Blackstone, triumphantly.

“Well,” then roared the master of the establishment, “I’d sell the blamed thing quick enough.”

“If you did you would get yourself into hot water, and have to pay me the full value of the beast; for an innkeeper can’t sell a horse he detains for its board without the consent of the owner.[340] Ho! ho! ho!” laughed the little rascal.

The poor landlord looked at me with such a despairing glance—a look of a dying duck in a thunder-storm—that I could scarce restrain my risible faculties as I remarked:

“I am afraid your adversary is correct, and not even if a horse were to eat its head off could you sell it, unless you chanced to live in London or Exeter. Your only remedy would be to sue for the price of the food, get judgment, and then sell.[341] You cannot sell a right of lien, or transfer the property, without losing your right and rendering yourself liable to an action. One must proceed by suit.”[342]

The landlord turned to the rascally attorney, and shaking his fist at him, exclaimed: “Get out, and if ever you darken my door again—look out!”

“Keep cool, sir, keep cool, the day is warm. Don’t shake your fist in my face, sir. It is not the first time I’ve done the old chap,” added my unworthy confrere, turning to us with a look of importance; “and it will not be the last, unless I’ve read law for naught.”

“How did you take him in before?” I queried.

“Well, some years ago I was hard up—not the first, perhaps not the last time I have been in that state—and I knew not how to get my team fed for a week or two. So, believing that money had a considerable influence with our friend here, I got a chap to run off with my ponies, bring them here, and throw out some hints that it would be all right in a pecuniary point of view if they could be kept in the stable for a few days until the affair blew over. All went merry as a marriage bell. I advertised for horses lost, stolen, or strayed, and after some three weeks happened here and quite accidentally, you know, found my span. Of course mine host wanted pretty good pay, but I talked to him like a father; told him that I knew that if a traveler brings to an inn the horse of a third person, the innkeeper has a perfect right to detain it for its keep; that of course he was not bound to inquire whose horse it was;[343] that that highly estimable and worthy occupant of the bench in days that are no more, I mean Judge Coleridge, said that with reference to an innkeeper’s lien there was no difference between the goods of a guest and those of a third person brought by a guest.[344] This pleased the old rascal. Then I pleaded poverty, but Shylock was unmoved; then I assumed an appearance of anger at his keeping my horses and went away.”

“But how did that help you?” I asked impatiently, growing weary of a story that was long enough for the ears of an antediluvian patriarch.

“Oh, I had not left the worthy’s house five minutes before I happened, quite accidentally, you know, to meet the man who had taken the horses. Back we came. Boniface admitted that he was the one who had brought my ponies to the inn. Then said I: ‘Sir, this man has confessed that he told you that he did not own the horses, that he had stolen them; you, therefore, became a party to his crime and have no right to keep my horses any longer for their charges. See—here is the law;’ and I showed him Oliphant on Horses, page 129;[345] and the fellow at once caved in. Ta-ta, Mr. Lawyer.”

And so off went the man to practice his knaveries and trickeries on some other unfortunate members of the genus homo. The only consolation of a virtuous man is that

“Well,” said my friend, who had all this time been standing by, a silent but not an unbenefited listener, “Well, it strikes me that the law concerning innkeepers and horses needs what Lord Dundreary thought the country did, that is to say, namely, to wit, improving!”

“True for you,” I replied. “For instance, until recently it was doubtful whether an innkeeper who detains a horse as a pledge for its keep, can detain also the saddle and bridle, or even the halter which fastens it to the stall.[346] And where a man stopped with his horse at an inn under suspicious circumstances, and the police ordered the innkeeper to retain the animal, it was held that the poor landlord had no lien.[347] And if a neighbor leaves his nag with an innkeeper to be fed and kept, allowing him to use it at his pleasure, and a creditor of the owner seize it for a debt, the poor publican has no lien for the animal’s keep;[348] nor would he have, where he boards the horses of a stage line, under a special agreement.”[349]

“What about a livery-stable keeper?” asked De Gex.

“Down in Georgia, it was held that he had a right of lien on horses and buggies left in his keeping;[350] but everywhere else, it is considered that he has no such lien, for the contract with him is that the owner is to have the horse whenever required;[351] and the claim of a lien would be inconsistent with the necessary enjoyment of the property.”[352]

“Suppose the livery man pays out money to a vet. for advice?”

“That would make no difference.[353] But if a man who is both an innkeeper and a livery-stable keeper receives a horse, and does not say he takes it in the latter capacity, he has all the responsibilities of an innkeeper, as well as all his privileges.[354] On the other hand, if an innkeeper receives horses and carriages on livery, the fact that the owner on a subsequent day takes refreshment at the inn will not give the innkeeper an innkeeper’s rights.[355] I was almost forgetting to say that even a livery-stable keeper may have a lien by express agreement;[356] and if he exercises any labor or trouble in the improvement of the animals, he will have a lien for his charges.[357]

“Well, I rather fancy that the ladies will think we have not almost, but altogether, forgotten them, and intend to pass another night here. Let us be off.”

Chapter VIII.

WHAT IS A LIEN?

As we turned to leave the premises to hasten back to our respective wives, leaving our Jehu to bring the carriage and horses, we were accosted by a most dilapidated specimen of the genus “seedy,” who appeared to be a kind of stable-boy or hostler not overstocked with brains. Judging from a cursory glance, his pants had parted in irreconcilable anger from his boots, and had cautiously shrunk well up to the knees—as if apprehensive of a kick from the big toe which was well enough to be outside the remains of the boots; here and there patches of bare skin peeped out through his tattered set-upons, as if pleased to see daylight and have a little fresh air. Yet of such varied hues were they, that the most profound ethnologist would be perplexed to decide whether the man should be classed among the Caucasian, Mongolian, Malay, Indian, or Negro race, or whether he was a hybrid compound of all five. His coat, in colors, would have rivaled Joseph’s, and made the teeth of his naughty brethren water with tenfold jealousy. His hat might have for generations been used in winter to exclude the rains and snows from a broken window, in summer for the breeding place of barn-door fowls. The countenance of this tatterdemalion seemed as empty as his pockets, and his brain as disordered as his long yellow hair; his breath as alcoholic as the store-room of a distillery; his tout ensemble anything but suggestive of the “is he not a man and a brother” sentiment.

In piteous tones this wreck of what, perchance, was once a mother’s darling, a father’s pride, asked:

“Be you a liyur, sur?”

“Yes. What do you want?” I returned.

“Well, sur, I’m a poor man, with not a cint to bliss myself wid; and I come here one day and got a bite of vittals, and bedad, sur, the ould landlord seized me for rint, and said, says he, that he had a lane upon me for those same scraps of cold food; and says he, I must stay here and work for him until I can pay up. Now, kin he do that same, yur honor?”

“No, most certainly not. He has no right to keep you or any other man for such a reason.[358] So you had better be off.”

“Long life to your honor, and may the holy saints—but kin he,” and again the voice sank into a wail, “kin he kape me clothes?”

“Nothing that you have on,”[359] I replied, as I turned away, thinking that I could hear the scratch of the recording angel’s pen as he scored another to the number of my good deeds.

“Was it not considered at one time that an innkeeper had the right to detain the persons of his guests for the payment of their bills?” queried De Gex.

“Yes, old Bacon so lays it down,[360] and so did one Judge Eyres,[361] long since gone to his account; and in some of the old text-books the same view is taken. But the idea was exploded forty years ago by the combined effort of Lord Abinger, C. B., and his puisnés, Barons Parke, Bolland, and Gurney.”

“On what occasion?”

“A man of the name of Sunbolf sued an innkeeper for assaulting and beating him, shaking and pulling him about, stripping and pulling off his coat, carrying it away and converting it to his own use.”

“That was rather rough of him.”

“It was, but the innkeeper, Alford, replied that he kept a common inn for the reception, lodging and entertainment of travelers and others; and that just before the time when he did all those things complained of, Sunbolf and divers other persons in company with him came into the inn as guests; and that he then found and provided them, at their request, with divers quantities of tea and other victuals; and that Sunbolf and the other persons thereupon, and just before the committing of the grievances, became and were indebted to him in a certain small sum of money, to wit, eleven shillings and three pence, for the said tea and victuals; and thereupon he, the innkeeper, just before he did the things of which he was accused, required and demanded of Sunbolf and the others, payment by them, or some or one of them, of the said sum, or some security or pledge for the payment thereof; but Sunbolf and the others wholly refused then, or at any other time, to pay to him the said sum, or leave with or give to him any security or pledge for the payment of the same; and before he did the acts spoken of, Sunbolf persisted in leaving, and would have departed and left the said inn, against the innkeeper’s will and consent, without paying the said sum of eleven shillings and three pence, so due as aforesaid, had not he, A., kept and detained him, Sunbolf, or some other of the said persons, or their goods and chattels, or some of them, until they paid it; and because Sunbolf and the others would go and depart from the said inn without paying, and refused to pay that sum to him, and because the sum remained wholly due to him, and because Sunbolf and the others would not, and refused to leave with or give any pledge or security whatever to him for the payment of that sum, and he (that is, Alford) could not procure or obtain from them, or any or either of them, any other pledge or security than the said coat mentioned, he, (the said Alford) at the time mentioned, did gently lay his hands on Sunbolf to prevent him going and departing from the said inn without his or the other persons paying the said eleven shillings and three pence, or giving him some pledge or security for the payment of it; and he did then, for the purpose of acquiring such security or pledge, to a gentle and necessary degree, lay his hands upon Sunbolf, and strip and pull the said coat from and off of him, the same being a reasonable pledge or security in that behalf, and then placed the same in the said inn wherein he had thence thitherto kept and detained the same as such pledge and security, for the said debt of eleven shillings and three pence, being wholly due and unpaid to him; and, therefore, he (Alford) suffered and permitted Sunbolf and the others to go and depart from the said inn; and on the occasion aforesaid he necessarily and unavoidably, to a small degree, shook and pulled about Sunbolf; and these were the acts complained of.”

“Well said the wise man of old, ‘Audi alteram partem,” said my friend. “Alford’s story gives quite a different aspect to the whole affair.”

“It gives you, at any rate, an idea of the longwinded pleadings in vogue in the year of grace 1838.”

“Was A.’s explanation satisfactory to the court?”

“Oh, dear, no! Parke, B., asked, during the argument, if an innkeeper had a right to turn his guest out without a coat; or if he had a right to take off all his clothes, and send him away naked; and afterwards, in giving judgment, he clearly and distinctly answered his own queries, and said that an innkeeper had no power to strip a guest of his clothes; for if he had, then, if the innkeeper took the coat off his back, and that proved an insufficient pledge, he might go on and strip him naked, and that would apply either to a male or female——”

“That would be shocking!”

“The learned baron merely considered it utterly absurd, and that the idea could not be entertained for a moment. Another of the judges said that he had always understood the law to be that the clothes on the person of a man, and in his possession at the time, are not to be considered as goods to which the right of lien can properly apply; that the consequence of holding otherwise might be to subject parties to disgrace and duress in order to compel them to pay a trifling debt which, after all, was not due, and which the innkeeper had no pretence for demanding.”

“But, my dear fellow, we were speaking of the right of a landlord to keep the body of his guest.”

“To be sure we were. The Chief Baron said that if an innkeeper had a right to detain a guest for the non-payment of his bill, he had a right to detain him until the bill was paid, which might be for years or might be for aye; so that by the common law, a man who owed a small debt, for which he could not be imprisoned by legal process, might yet be detained by an innkeeper for life. Such a proposition my Lord Chief Baron said was monstrous, and, according to my lord Baron Parke, was startling.”[362]

“For my part, I think it is high time we rejoined the ladies,” said De Gex, with the air of a man satisfied with what he had heard.

“All right; throw law to the dogs, to improve upon the immortal bard.”

* * * * * *

Our return drive was as pleasant as that of the preceding day, except that we might well have exclaimed, in the words of the poet:

En route, we stopped at a little wayside inn for luncheon. On the table the pièce de resistance was beefsteak.

“I never,” observed De G., “see beefsteak but I think of poor old George III.”

“Had he a particular penchant for it?” I asked.

“Not that. But once, when his intellect was sadly clouded, he was breakfasting at Kew, and the conversation turned on the great scarcity of beef in England. ‘Why don’t the people plant more beef?’ asked his majesty. Of course he was told that beef could not be raised from seed or slips; but he seemed incredulous, and, taking some pieces of steak, he went out into the garden and planted them. Next morning he visited the spot to see if the beef had sprouted, and finding some snails crawling about, he took them for small oxen, and joyfully exclaimed to his wife: ‘Here they are; here they are, Charlotte—horns and all!’”

“Poor fellow—poor fellow!”

By and by, apple dumplings appeared. “Ha!” I exclaimed, “here are more reminders of the poor old king! How his Britannic majesty used to puzzle over the problem of how the apples got inside the pastry.”

“The Chinese cooks would have bewildered him still more with some of their ingenious performances,” remarked De Gex.

“In what respect?” queried the ladies.

“At a recent banquet in San Francisco, an orange was placed beside the plate of each guest. The fruit, to an ordinary observer, appeared like any other oranges; but, on being cut open, they were found to contain, mirabile dictu——”

“What?” asked my wife.

“Excuse me, I should not have quoted Latin. They were found to contain five different kinds of delicate jellies. Of course, every one was puzzled, first of all, to find how the jelly got in; and giving up that as a conundrum too difficult to be solved, he found himself in a worse quandary over the problem as to how the pulpy part of the orange got out. Colored eggs were served up, and inside of them were found nuts, jellies, meats, and confectionery.”

“Wonderful men those Celestials!” I exclaimed. “They must have got such notions from the banqueting table of Jove himself.”

“I thought they indulged in nothing nicer than cats or dogs, rats or mice, with an occasional dash of bird’s-nest soup,” said Mrs. De Gex.

“Altogether a mistaken notion,” returned her husband.

Tea was the beverage. I nearly upset the table as I reached over for the teapot, whereupon my comrade exclaimed in the words of Cibber’s rhapsody:

“Tea, thou soft, thou sober, sage and venerable liquid; thou female tongue-running, smile-smoothing, heart-opening, wink-tipping cordial, to whose glorious insipidity we owe the happiest moments of our lives, let me fall prostrate.”

“Time’s up,” I said, as straightening myself I swallowed another cupful.

* * * * * *

When we were again fairly under way and the ladies were quietly talking some scandal, sotto voce, I said to De Gex: “Referring again to the innkeeper’s lien——”

“Let us have no more about it,” he replied promptly. “Honestly, I must say that you are not a Paganini and cannot please by always playing upon one string.”

“Perhaps not, but as rare old Ben Jonson remarked, ‘when I take the humor of a thing once, I am like a tailor’s needle—I go through,’ and a little more information on that important subject may prove useful to you some day.”

“If you will talk on that dry subject, kindly inform me why publicans have a lien at all,” said my friend.

“Well, you know that a lien is the right of a man to whom any chattel is given to detain it until some pecuniary demand upon or in respect of it has been satisfied by the owner, and as the law treats an innkeeper as a public servant, and imposes upon him certain duties—making him, for example, receive all guests who are willing and able to pay, and are unobjectionable on moral, pecuniary, or hygienic grounds, and bestow on the preservation of their goods an extraordinary amount of care—so, to compensate him for this obligation, the law gives him the power of detaining his guest’s goods, (except such as are in the visitor’s actual possession and custody, in his hand for example,) until he pays for the entertainment afforded, including, of course, remuneration for the care of those goods. The lien extends to all the goods and chattels of the guest, even those especially handed over to the host and placed by him apart from the personal goods of his visitor.”[363]

“Then, I suppose an innkeeper has a lien upon the goods of a guest only.”

“Exactly so; so that if he receive the person as a friend, or a boarder,[364] or under any special agreement,[365] or an arrangement to pay at a future time,[366] he has no lien upon the goods, for he has no responsibility with regard to them. In one case, however, it was decided that if a man came to an hotel as a guest, his subsequently arranging to board by the week would not alter the character in which he was originally received, nor take away the host’s right of lien.”[367]

“Suppose things are brought which the innkeeper is not bound to receive—what then?”

“Where he actually takes in goods for a guest, whether he were legally bound to do so or not, he is responsible for their safety, and so has a lien upon them.[368] But if anything is left with him, merely to take care of, by one who does not himself put up at the house, the poor innkeeper has no right to keep them until paid for his trouble;[369] unless, indeed, it is a horse, or other animal, out of the keep of which he can receive a benefit.[370] And you heard old Blackstone say, this A.M., that the proprietor is not bound to inquire whether or not the guest is the real owner of the goods;[371] and if the guest turns out a thief, still the true owner cannot get back his property without paying the charges upon it.[372] In Georgia, however, it has been held that the innkeeper has no lien against the true owner, except for the charges upon the specific article on which the lien is claimed.”[373]

“But supposing he really knows that the guest is not the owner?” said my companion.

“Then he has no lien. Broadwood, the celebrated piano manufacturer, loaned a piano to M. Hababier, who was staying at a hotel. The court held that, as it was furnished to the guest for his temporary use by a third party and the innkeeper knew it belonged to such party, and as Hababier had not brought it to the place as his own, either upon his coming to or while staying at the inn, the proprietor had no lien upon it.[374] But of course, if a servant, or an agent, in the course of his employment, come to an inn and runs up a bill, the proprietor has a lien upon his master’s goods in the servant’s custody.”[375]

“How long does this right last?”

“Only so long as the goods remain in the inn. If the guest goes away and then comes back again, the publican cannot retain them for the prior debt.[376] If, however, the unsophisticated landlord is beguiled into letting them go by a fraudulent representation, his right remains;[377] and if they are taken away, he may follow them if he does not loiter.[378] Delays are always dangerous, except in cases of matrimony. Of course, a tender of the money claimed extinguishes the lien;[379] but it must be a valid tender. Tossing down a lot of money on a table, and offering it if the innkeeper will take it in full of the bill, is not a proper tender.[380] Sometimes, if too much is claimed, or the claim is on a wrong account, a tender may not be necessary.”[381]

“Must the man say why he refuses to give up the goods?”

“If he gives a reason for detaining them other than his right of lien, he waives that, and it is gone; still, merely omitting to mention it when the goods are demanded will not prevent him enforcing it.”[382]

“Could not a guest get off by paying a small sum on account?”

“No; for then a farthing in cash would destroy the right;[383] but taking a note payable at a future day will put a stop to it.”[384]

“I believe that the landlord cannot sell the goods seized,” suggested my comrade.

“No, except by consent or operation of law.”[385]

“Is there no limit to the amount for which the lien can exist?”

“That point was disposed of in a case where a young fellow’s mother asked a hotel-keeper not to allow her son, who was a guest in the house, more than a certain quantity of brandy and water per diem, yet mine host supplied the youth with considerably more of that beverage than was named. When the bill was disputed, the judge held that a landlord was not bound to examine the nature of the articles ordered by a guest before he supplied them; but might furnish whatever was ordered, and that the guest was bound to pay for them, provided he was possessed of reason, and not an infant.”[386]

“Oh, then, a juvenile’s goods and chattels cannot be kept for his little hotel bill? Another privilege gone forever with the happy days of childhood,” said De Gex.

“I am not quite so sure. In Kentucky, it was held that they could be, if the entertainment was furnished in good faith, without the knowledge that the youngster was acting improperly and contrary to the wishes of his guardian; and it was even held that the innkeeper had a lien for money given to the boy and expended by him for necessaries,”[387] I remarked.

“I trust,” said my companion, “that there is not very much more to be said on the subject. I feel that I am growing thin, and will soon require a lean-to to support me.”

“You are like the rest of the world, ingrate and thankless. Here I have been giving you freely of what has cost me long, weary hours of study and gallons of petroleum, and still you grumble. Only two points more would I endeavor to impress upon your memory, the knowledge of which may prove to be worth to you fully the cost of this drive of ours.”

“Well, I will restrain myself and lend a listening ear.”

“In the first place, if an innkeeper should retain your trunks for your hotel bill, you need pay him nothing for his trouble in taking care of them thereafter; when you are flush again, you may call, and on paying the original amount due, demand your traps.[388] In that way, you see, you may sometimes get rid of the trouble of carrying your baggage about with you. Then, again, whenever possible, travel in company, with all the baggage in one trunk; let the one who owns the trunk pay his bill, and then all may go on their way rejoicing; for where a paterfamilias took his daughters to an hotel and the board of all was charged to the old man, (who afterward became insolvent) it was well decided that the trunks of one of the girls could not be detained for the whole amount due by the party. Every man for himself, seems to be the rule.”[389]

“What are you two men gossiping about?” suddenly broke in Mrs. Lawyer, she and her companion having fully exhausted their stock of chit-chat.

“Gossiping!” said De Gex; “no indeed; as Sir Boyle Roche would say, I deny the allegation, and defy the allegator.”

“None with a properly constituted mind would indulge in such a thing; for George Eliot well defines gossip to be ‘a sort of smoke which comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it,’ and remarks that it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker,” I added.

The ladies seemed conscience-stricken, for neither replied, and for some time we all sat in silence, enjoying the delicious coolness of eventide; each was busied in private castle-building, or “watching out the light of sunset, and the opening of that beadroll which some oriental poet describes as God’s call to the little stars, who each answer, ‘Here am I!’”

Chapter IX.

DUTIES OF A BOARDING-HOUSE KEEPER.

Of the food provided for the inner man, need more be said than that the poultry, which appeared on the second day of our sojourn, would have seemed to Mr. Bagnet’s fastidious eye, suitable for Mrs. B.’s birthday dinner? If there be any truth in adages, they certainly were not caught by chaff. Every kind of finer tendon and ligament that it is in the nature of poultry to possess, was developed in these specimens in the singular form of guitar strings. Their limbs appeared to have struck roots into their breasts and bodies, as aged trees strike roots into the earth. Their legs were so hard as to encourage the idea that they must have devoted the greater part of their long and arduous lives to pedestrian exercises and the walking of matches. No one could have cleaned the drumsticks without being of ostrich descent.

Ab uno disce omnes. Ex pede Herculem. From these three hints let each one, for himself, erect images of our boarding-house, our fellow-boarders, and our meals, as a Cuvier would reconstruct a megatherium from a tooth, or an Agassiz draw a picture of an unknown fish from a single scale. But I must not dip my pen in vinegar, nor tip it with wormwood, when I write of boarding-houses and their industrious and unfortunate keepers. These providers of food and lodging seem to be the descendants of Ishmael, their hand being against every one to eke out their little profits, and every one’s hand being against them. Let me be an honorable exception to the general rule, and act like the Good Samaritan, although, by the way, that worthy patronized a cheap hotel, not a boarding-house.

* * * * * *

It has ever been a hobby of mine that a door—hall or otherwise—is intended to be shut (if not, a hole in the wall would answer every purpose and be cheaper). Well, one great source of trouble with me at Madame Dee’s private boarding-house was that the domestic-of-all-work was in the constant habit of leaving the hall door ajar whenever she made her exit on to the street in her hunt for butter, eggs, or milk. A fellow-boarder, seeing my anxiety on this point, asked me if I was afraid of some one stealing Mrs. Lawyer.

“No,” I replied, “I am more afraid of my overcoat. Although not very new, it is still serviceable.”

“Well, sir,” said a youthful reader of Blackstone and Story, “if any one feloniously and wickedly takes away your bad habit could you not deduct the value of it on your next week’s settlement with Mrs. Dee? An innkeeper would be liable in such a case.”

“My dear young friend,” I replied, “you have as yet acquired only the A B C of professional knowledge. The liability of a boarding-house keeper for the goods of a boarder is by no means the same as that of an innkeeper.”

Here I paused, but the first speaker asked me to proceed and explain the difference, so I spake somewhat as follows:

“Once upon a time Catherine Dansey went to the boarding-house of Elizabeth F. Richardson with her luggage, and was duly received within the mansion. One day some of Mrs. Dansey’s goods, chattels, or knick-knacks were stolen, and when the matter was investigated it appeared that the thief had entered through the front door—which had been left open by the servant—and that Mrs. Richardson knew that her Biddy was in the constant habit of neglecting to shut the door. Mrs. R. would not settle the affair amicably, so Mrs. D. had the law of her.[390] At the trial the judge told the jury that a boarding-house keeper was bound to take due and reasonable care about the safe-keeping of a guest’s goods; and then, it having struck his lordship that perhaps his twelve enlightened countrymen, who sat before him in the box, did not know too well what due care might be, he proceeded to explain to them that it was such care as a prudent housekeeper would take in the management of his own house for the protection of his own goods. The judge went on to say that Mrs. Richardson’s servant leaving the door open might be a want of such care, but the mistress was not answerable for such negligence, unless she herself had been guilty of some neglect (as in keeping such a servant with a knowledge of her habits). The jury, as in duty bound, took the law from his lordship and said that Dame R. was not liable.”

“Then Mrs. Dansey had to perform to the tune of a nice little bill of costs, and grin and bear it,” remarked the embryo Coke.

“She was rather stubborn about it, and applied for a new trial.”

“Did she get it?” asked Coke in futuro.

“No. The whole four judges gave it as their opinion that a boarding-house keeper is not bound to keep a guest’s baggage safely to the same extent as an innkeeper, but that the law implies an undertaking on his part to take due and proper care of the boarder’s belongings, although nothing was said about it; and that neglecting to take due care of an outer door might be a breach of such duty.”

“But did they say what due and proper care amounted to?” was queried.

“Yes; but, as doctors often do, they disagreed on the point. Judge Wightman could not see that a boarding-house keeper is a bailee of the goods of his guest at all, or that he is bound to take more care of them (when they are no further given into his care than by being in his house) than he as a prudent man would take of his own. If he were guilty of negligence in the selection of his servants, or in keeping such as he might well distrust, his lordship said that he could hardly be considered as taking the care of a prudent owner, and so might be liable for a loss occasioned by a servant’s neglect. Erle, J., said that as there was no delivery of the goods by Mrs. D. to Mrs. R., no contract to keep them with care and deliver them again, and nothing paid in respect of the goods, there was no duty of keeping them placed upon Richardson. Judge Coleridge and Lord Campbell looked at the case through spectacles of another color—the former said that a guest at such a house is entitled to due and reasonable care absolutely; he comes to the house and pays his money for certain things to be rendered in return; he stipulates directly with the master, having no control himself over the servants, and having nothing to do with the master’s judiciousness or care or good fortune in selecting them; and the master undertakes to the guest not merely to be careful in the choice of his servants, but absolutely to take due and reasonable care of his goods. Lord Campbell said that he could not go so far as to say that in no case can a boarding-house keeper be liable for the loss of goods through the negligence of a servant, although he himself was guiltless of any negligence in hiring or keeping the domestic. If one employs servants to keep the outer door shut when there is danger of thieves, while they are performing that duty they are acting within the scope of their employment, and he is answerable for their negligence. He is not answerable for the consequences of a felony, or even a willful trespass committed by them; but the general rule is, that the master is responsible for the negligence of his servants while engaged in offices which he employs them to do—and his lordship (for I have been quoting his sentiments) said that he was not aware how the keeper of a boarding-house could be an exception to the general rule.”

I stopped here, and was rather chagrined to catch one of those present saying to another—

“Do you remember what old Coates said about his wife?”

“No—what?”

“‘M-Mrs. C-Coates is a f-funny old watch. She b-broke her chain a g-good while ago, and has been r-running down ever since; she must have a mainspring a mile long.’ This is apropos of our friend here when he gets started on a legal point.”

“And he is always starting some such shoppy subject; like Adelaide Proctor’s young man—