the quality of conduct demanded of him by his fellows.  Yet after twenty-one all are held equally responsible—­unless they’re actually insane.  It isn’t equity!  In theory no man or animal should be subject to the power of discretionary punishment on the part of another—­even his own father or master.  I’ve often wondered what earthly right we have to make the animals work for us—­to bind them to slavery when we denounce slavery as a crime.  It would horrify us to see a human being put up and sold at auction.  Yet we tear the families of animals apart, subject them to lives of toil, and kill them whenever we see fit.  We say we do this because their intelligence is limited and they cannot exercise any discrimination in their conduct, that they are always in the zone of irresponsibility and so have no rights.  But I’ve seen animals that were shrewder than men, and men who were vastly less intelligent than animals.”

“Right-o!” assented Tutt.  “Take Scraggs, for instance.  He’s no more responsible than a chipmunk.”

“Nevertheless, the law has always been consistent,” said Mr. Tutt, “and has never discriminated between animals any more than it has between men on the ground of varying degrees of intelligence.  They used to try ’em all, big and little, wild and domesticated, mammals and invertebrates.”

“Oh, come!” exclaimed Tutt.  “I may not know much law, but—­”

“Between 1120 and 1740 they prosecuted in France alone no less than ninety-two animals.  The last one was a cow.”

“A cow hasn’t much intelligence,” observed Tutt.

“And they tried fleas,” added Mr. Tutt.

“They have a lot!” commented his junior partner.  “I knew a flea once, who—­”

“They had a regular form of procedure,” continued Mr. Tutt, brushing the flea aside, “which was adhered to with the utmost technical accuracy.  You could try an individual animal, either in person or by proxy, or you could try a whole family, swarm or herd.  If a town was infested by rats, for example, they first assigned counsel—­an advocate, he was called—­and then the defendants were summoned three times publicly to appear.  If they didn’t show up on the third and last call they were tried in absentia, and if convicted were ordered out of the country before a certain date under penalty of being exorcised.”

“What happened if they were exorcised?” asked Tutt curiously.

“It depended a good deal on the local power of Satan,” answered the old lawyer dryly.  “Sometimes they became even more prolific and destructive than they were before, and sometimes they promptly died.  All the leeches were prosecuted at Lausanne in 1451.  A few selected representatives were brought into court, tried, convicted and ordered to depart within a fixed period.  Maybe they didn’t fully grasp their obligations or perhaps were just acting contemptuously, but they didn’t depart and so were promptly exorcised.  Immediately they began to die off and before long there were none left in the country.”