Fit the Sixth: The Barrister’s Dream

  1. The Beaver’s Lesson
  2. The Hunting of the Snark
  3. The Banker’s Fate
    • They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
    • They pursued it with forks and hope;
    • They threatened its life with a railway-share;
    • They charmed it with smiles and soap.
    • But the Barrister, weary of proving in vain
    • That the Beaver’s lace-making was wrong,
    • Fell asleep, and in dreams saw the creature quite plain
    • That his fancy had dwelt on so long.
    • He dreamed that he stood in a shadowy Court,
    • Where the Snark, with a glass in its eye,
    • Dressed in gown, bands, and wig, was defending a pig
    • On the charge of deserting its sty.
    • The Witnesses proved, without error or flaw,
    • That the sty was deserted when found:
    • And the Judge kept explaining the state of the law
    • In a soft under-current of sound.
    • The indictment had never been clearly expressed,
    • And it seemed that the Snark had begun,
    • And had spoken three hours, before any one guessed
    • What the pig was supposed to have done.
    • The Jury had each formed a different view
    • (Long before the indictment was read),
    • And they all spoke at once, so that none of them knew
    • One word that the others had said.
    • “You must know—” said the Judge: but the Snark exclaimed “Fudge!
    • That statute is obsolete quite!
    • Let me tell you, my friends, the whole question depends
    • On an ancient manorial right.
    • “In the matter of Treason the pig would appear
    • To have aided, but scarcely abetted:
    • While the charge of Insolvency fails, it is clear,
    • If you grant the plea ‘never indebted’.
    • “The fact of Desertion I will not dispute:
    • But its guilt, as I trust, is removed
    • (So far as relates to the costs of this suit)
    • By the Alibi which has been proved.
    • “My poor client’s fate now depends on your votes.”
    • Here the speaker sat down in his place,
    • And directed the Judge to refer to his notes
    • And briefly to sum up the case.
    • But the Judge said he never had summed up before;
    • So the Snark undertook it instead,
    • And summed it so well that it came to far more
    • Than the Witnesses ever had said!
    • When the verdict was called for, the Jury declined,
    • As the word was so puzzling to spell;
    • But they ventured to hope that the Snark wouldn’t mind
    • Undertaking that duty as well.
    • So the Snark found the verdict, although, as it owned,
    • It was spent with the toils of the day:
    • When it said the word “GUILTY!” the Jury all groaned,
    • And some of them fainted away.
    • Then the Snark pronounced sentence, the Judge being quite
    • Too nervous to utter a word:
    • When it rose to its feet, there was silence like night,
    • And the fall of a pin might be heard.
    • “Transportation for life” was the sentence it gave,
    • “And then to be fined forty pound.”
    • The Jury all cheered, though the Judge said he feared
    • That the phrase was not legally sound.
    • But their wild exultation was suddenly checked
    • When the jailer informed them, with tears,
    • Such a sentence would not have the slightest effect,
    • As the pig had been dead for some years.
    • The Judge left the Court, looking deeply disgusted:
    • But the Snark, though a little aghast,
    • As the lawyer to whom the defence was intrusted,
    • Went bellowing on to the last.
    • Thus the Barrister dreamed, while the bellowing seemed
    • To grow every moment more clear:
    • Till he woke to the knell of a furious bell,
    • Which the Bellman rang close at his ear.
  1. The Beaver’s Lesson
  2. The Hunting of the Snark
  3. The Banker’s Fate