A CLAIM OF SALVAGE UNDER MARITIME BOG-LAW

Found paper — one small card, oilcloth-backed, handed over the side of a boat.

THE SCUTTLE CLAN · SALVAGE Established since before you.

VESSEL: none.

WATERS: the ditch by the Mucklecombe green.

DEPTH AT TIME OF INCIDENT: a hand and a half.

ITEM SALVAGED: one hat, brown, good.

TIME SUBMERGED: three seconds.

SALVOR: Dredger.

FINDING. The hat having gone under, and having remained under the surface for the required three seconds, is salvage, and is now Dredger's.

GROUNDS. Maritime bog-law. Ancient. Universally known. Never overturned.

AUTHORITY CITED. None available. None required. Everybody knows it.

NOTE OF THE CLAIMANT'S OBJECTIONS, RECORDED IN FULL AS A COURTESY:

That it was his hat. — Accepted. It was.

That the ditch is not the sea. — The Scuttles are not aware of a rule to that effect and would be interested to see it.

That he was still wearing it. — Immaterial. The hat went under. The gentleman also went under, and was returned, being of no salvage value.

That three seconds is not very long. — Correct, and that is why it is three seconds and not four. The Clan has been asked about this at every market for six hundred years and the answer has not altered: a longer rule would be a kinder rule and there would be no Scuttles in it.

That he intends to take the matter to law. — Encouraged. Sprog will go with him. Sprog enjoys it.

SETTLEMENT. The hat was returned to the gentleman, on the bank, freely, with the water wrung out of it, as is customary.

The Scuttles do not keep hats. The Scuttles have never kept a hat. What the Scuttles keep is the principle, and the principle requires that the claim be made, and made in writing, and filed, and that the gentleman be given this card so that he understands precisely how close he came.

Weasel wrote the card. Weasel is eight.

Archivist's note. Persons finding themselves in this position are advised, by everybody who has been in it, to congratulate the salvor warmly and buy the round. The alternative is to argue maritime law with a family who invented it, in a boat, that they own, in front of their child.