They would,
therefore, not give back their fees, and pay them two hundred pounds
apiece for breach of contract, but detain their fees and stop their
studies until compelled by judicial decision to keep faith. Observe, it
was under advice of the lord-justice-general they had matriculated us,
and entered into a contract with us, _for fulfilling which it was not,
and is not, in the power of any mortal man to punish them._
"But these pettifoggers said this: _'We_ have acted illegally, and
therefore not we, but _you,_ shall suffer: _we_ will _profit_ by our
illegal act, for we will cheat you out of your fees to the university and
your fees to its professors, as well as the seed-time of your youth that
we have wasted.'
"Now, in that country they can get the opinions of the judges by raising
what they call an action of declarator.
"One would think it was their business to go to the judges, and meantime
give us the benefit of the legal doubt, while it lasted, and of the moral
no-doubt, which will last till the day of judgment, and a day after.
"Not a bit of it. They deliberately broke their contract with us, kept
our fees, and cheated us out of the article we had bought of them,
disowned all sense of morality, yet shifted the burden of law on to our
shoulders.
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