Page:Fifty Candles (1926).djvu/14

 house-boy’s shoes on his Saturday night in town. I found what I was looking for under the heading: “In the Matter of Chang See.”

The Chinese, we are told, are masters of indirection, of saying one thing and meaning another, of arriving at their goal by way of a devious, irrelevant maze. Our legal system must have been invented and perfected by Chinamen—but is this lese-majesty or contempt of court or something? Beyond question the decision of the learned court in the matter of Chang See, as set down in the big yellow book, is obscured and befuddled by a mass of unspeakably dreary words. See 21 Cyc., 317 Church Habeas Corpus, 2d Ed., Sec. 169. By all means consult Kelley v. Johnson, 31 U. S. (6 Pet.) 622, 631–32. And many more of the same sort.

Here and there, however, you will happen on phrases that mean something to the layman; that indicate, behind the Rh