The Struggle for Law
man who resists being duped by inn-keepers and hackmen with a manfulness which would induce one to think he was defending the law of Old England—who, in case of need, postpones his departure, remains days in the place and spends ten times the amount he refuses to pay. The people laugh at him, and do not understand him. It were better if they did understand him. For, in the few shillings which the man here defends, Old England lives. At home, in his own country, every one understands him, and no one lightly ventures to overreach him. Place an Austrian of the same social position and the same means in the place of the Englishman—how would he act? If I can trust my own experience in this matter, not one in ten would follow the example of the Englishman. Others shun the disagreeableness of the controversy, the making of a sensation, the possibility of a misunderstanding to which they might expose themselves, a misunderstanding which the Englishman in England need not at all fear, and which he quietly takes into the
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