"Well, it's very hard that I can't say a word by way of ex--"

"This is too much," said the judge, warmly--"this is just a little
too much. Perhaps you'd like to come up on the bench here and run the
court and sentence a few convicts? Mr. Clerk, fine that man fifty
dollars. Now, sir, remove your hat."

"Judge, this is rough on me. I----"

"Won't do it yet?" said the judge, furiously. "Why, you impudent
scoundrel, I've a notion to--Mr. Clerk, fine him one hundred dollars
more, and, Mr. Jones, you go and take that hat off by force."

Then the tipstaff approached Mix, who was by this time half crazy with
wrath, and hit the hat with his stick. It did not move. Then he struck
it again and caved in the crown, but it still remained on Mix's head.
Then he picked up a volume of Brown _On Evidence_, and mashed the
crown in flat. Then Mix sprang at him; and shaking his fist under the
nose of Jones, he shrieked,

"You miserable scullion, I've half a notion to kill you! If that
jackass on the bench had any sense, he could see that the hat is glued
fast. I can't take it off if I wanted to, and I wouldn't take it off
now if I could."

[Illustration: A COURT SCENE]

Then the judge removed the fines and excused him, and Mix went home.
He slept in his hat for a week; and even when it came off, the top of
his head looked as black as if mortification had set in.