title. He was an honest man, and he thought the world was honest."
"He thought wrong," said Dillworth.
"He did," said Abner.
"Well," cried Dillworth, "am I to blame because there is a fool the less? Will the people never learn that the court does not warrant the title to the lands that it sells in a suit in chancery? The man who buys before the courthouse door buys a pig in a poke, and it is not the court's fault if the poke is empty. The judge could not look up the title to every tract of land that comes into his court, nor could the title to every tract be judicially determined in every suit that involves it. To do that, every suit over land would have to be a suit to determine title and every claimant would have to be a party."
"What you say may be the truth," said Abner, "but the people do not always know it."
"They could know it if they would inquire," answered Dillworth; "why did not this man go before the judge?"
"Well," replied Abner, "he has gone before a greater Judge." Abner leaned back in his chair and his fingers rapped on the table.
"The law is not always justice," he said. "Is it not the law that a man may buy a tract of land and pay down the price in gold and enter into the possession of it, and yet, if by inadvertence the justice of the peace omits to write certain words into the
161
