A "Knowing" German

Feilding Star, Volume V, Issue 25, 1 March 1884, Page 3

A "Knowing" German

-■ ♦ - Persons who have business in a court of law/especially as iitigsnts, and when the consequences" involved are to them important, should certainly learn to blfiavg themselves ; and failing any other qualnlcation for success should at least be!fufiy prepared, so far as being in their sober "sehsei, is concerned. A f«w days •go appeared in a certain R-M. Court a defendant .ia a civil action where the amount of claim was something consider able, to him at any rate. Our hero it appeared, bailed from Vaterland, which of. course was no crime. There was another circumstance too which was no fault of his, and that was that he-rejoiced" in the possesion of a patronymic which to say theTeast 6f it, has not a very euphonious,*but rather a somewhat suggestive stiimd in English ears. Mr Blank, which we will for the present call him, had evidently 'been fortifying himself with the cup that does something besides cheer if patronised too freely, and appeared in I court in a rather advanced state of in- j ebriety; and while.awatting bis turn to stand before the representative of law, he somewhat misbehaved, and ba 1 frequently to be called 'to order, and indeed had to be forcibly expelled' two or three times by tho sinewy' arms of the local Constable. Wheu called upon to defend the action waich had brought him there, he rather craftily tried to make believe he knew nothing of the English language. Of this, however^ he utterly failed tc convince the Bench, and quite betrayed himself when ia answer to the question as to how he bad travelled from his • wn borne he said on " two feet," although from his appellation, and the manner in which he conducted himself it might Almost have been inferred tbat he was something more than a mere biped. Failing to make anything out of him. His Worship took a charitable view of the poor fellow's position, aad resolved to give him another chance, adjourning the ease so. that he might get an interpreter, and come better prepared next tine. His nationality thus temporarily enabled him tp save bis bacon. He will no doubt act more prudently next time, when it will probably appear more clearly than it did even on the day in question that this wily German is not after all the *'wb" he seemed t<> be.