The centerpiece of the chapter is an effort to redeem the promise that I have earlier attributed to the lawyerly virtues—in particular to fidelity and its attendant negative capability—by setting these virtues in a political context.

Oh! Cousin Clarence, he exclaimed, there is a Yankee peddler here; the longest, lathiest, queerest slab-sided being you ever saw in all your life.

Be not affeard, the Iſle is full of noyſes, / Sounds, and ſweet aires, that giue delight and hurt not.

But a West German reporting a lost passport in East Berlin during the years of the Wall was treated to a criminal investigation, with the passport loser as the potential criminal.