“In the chief of the pleaders upon the other side, I was pleased to see an old guest of mine. He nodded to me familiarly, rose, and opened his statement, beginning, as I did, with the ritual phrase. ‘Your Holiness and Voice of God,’ said he, ‘His Majesty and council have instructed me. I admit that this is a case of peculiar subtlety and difficulty, nor do I doubt that it will employ many of my colleagues, not only in this court but in superior courts, for many months to come. Indeed, to my certain knowledge, one of them has recently purchased a marvellous vehicle which travels rapidly of its own act without horses, a foreign invention, in which he would not have invested had he not foreseen the lengthy and lucrative nature of the case. But that is by the way. I only mention it in order to make Your Holiness understand that we have here to settle an issue which indeed could hardly have been brought before any judge less divine than yourself.’
“There followed for about a quarter of an hour a fine passage upon the majesty of the law and the peculiar gifts and virtues of the judges. But through the whole of it he insisted in every second sentence upon the gravity of the case and its difficulty. I was flattered and surprised. I had not thought that my opponents would make so much of me; but, on the other hand, I remembered that their payment was at the charge of the public and that every day added to the sum they received. He next touched upon the folly of the Salt Tax, its iniquity, its old-fashionedness, its absurdity, and after an hour of this paused a moment to pull down and smooth the long furry ears of his headgear.
“In the second hour he brought in the very words of the charter. He first recited them, ‘forever and forever, so long as the state shall endure and the salt tax be paid.’ He insisted, with repeated emphasis, upon the word ‘and.’ In the third and fourth hours he quoted 150 instances of cases in which this word had completely changed the character of a document, as, for instance, in the famous case known as Abraham’s Will, where the testator left all his property to his beloved wife, Fatimah, and the remainder to her mother. Next, he quoted the case known as the ‘Degree of Dignity,’ when it was ordered that all those apprehended for speaking disrespectfully of the Grand Mufti should be brought into his presence and decapitated. Again (what interested me very much, for it was connected with Money), the terms of the statute, now over one hundred years old, by which the councillors of the king receive one dinar per day and whatever other sum they see fit to vote themselves out of the taxes.
“It was the word ‘and,’ said he, that made the difference in all these cases. He might call witnesses to show that the word was inserted in the charter to render the phrase abortive, absurd, nonsensical and altogether of no effect. But, alternatively, supposing that the word ‘and’ but confirmed my case in the decision of His Holiness, then he pleaded that the charter, having been obtained by a stranger, not a subject of the king, was null and void. Supposing that it were upheld in spite of this, then, alternatively, that I, Mahmoud, was a subject of the king, a native born, and therefore subject to the king’s decisions in council. Finally, he concluded that in any case I must not win because, if I did, it would make His Majesty’s council and members thereof look like a fool severally and collectively, than which no more deplorable thing could happen to the state. Further, even if His Holiness should decide that it mattered not a rusty nail whether the council were made to look fools or no, there was, anyhow, no money to pay me. This established a default contumax and a discharge in alias of the second degree. I give his exact words, for I noted them at the time, and could guess vaguely that they must be of grave import. When he got so far I noticed a great commotion among his colleagues. Every man in court wore an expression of strained attention mixed with admiration, and the judge himself could not withhold from his august features something of the same tribute to this genius of debate.
“ ‘Note also, Your Holiness,’ continued the pleader, wagging his arched forefinger (which was long and pointed) very significantly in the air, ‘the contumax in advert to subvert … and the same regardant.’ He added in a sort of sneering tone: ‘I will not weary the court with that’ (I could see that the judge nodded), ‘but even the plaintiff, learned as he is in the law, will admit,’ and here he turned and addressed me with a very contemptuous expression, ‘that plevin would not obtain in the case of recognizance, or at any rate in the defection thereof would be docketed as an endorsement pursuant. An endorsement pursuant would stand void,’ he continued, with a renewed interest in his tone (he now excited a feverish attention in his audience), ‘for that is in the very foundation, I take it, of our law of terce and perinomy and has been upheld by a long succession of your Holiness’s predecessors from the origins of our Sacred Lawyers’ Guild.’
“Here again I thought I noticed the trace of an uncertain nod from the august figure upon the bench. ‘It comes, therefore,’ concluded this eloquent man, ‘in plain words, to
