Page:Malabari, Behramji M. - Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1882).djvu/206

190 much larger sum to the pleader who had picked up his case, was a sore disappointment. The Judge passed severe strictures on the complainant's conduct, and his judgment was received with delight by all save two in the room.

But I have not looked upon the issue of the case as a success. What I suffered that day in mind I have not yet forgotten. Even in the hour of triumph I wished I had never gone to Court. What a ruin I had so narrowly escaped! But for the Judge having been patient and considerate, for his having that day assumed the double rôle of judge and counsel, it is impossible to tell where I would have been. And though the dark visions of bankruptcy and jail were the offspring of my morbid imagination, there is no doubt that, with a hasty and inexperienced judge, I would not have been able to clear myself of the many charges foisted upon me by the baffled fiend. Since then, in the plenitude of my experience, I have warned all from going to Court. Suffer any amount of reasonable inconvenience, but do not rush into courts of law. You can never be sure of what may happen. Courts of law are a luxury for the well-to-do, and the nothing-to-do, so to call them. Audacious lying