The Confessions of Artemas Quibble Part 9

Finally, having learned through a clerk in the banker's office with whom he had cultivated an acquaintance that Mr. Morgan H. Rogers was going to Boston at a certain hour that very afternoon, he donned his best funeral suit and boarded the same train himself. As he pa.s.sed through the drawing-room car he bowed to the great man, who returned his greeting with the shortness characteristic of him, and pa.s.sed on to the smoker, where he ensconced himself in a chair near the door, depositing on the seat next to him a pile of magazines and his coat. Half an hour pa.s.sed and the car filled up, save for the seat next the young lawyer. Presently the bulky form of Morgan H. Rogers filled the door-way. He already had a black unlit cigar in his mouth and he scanned the rows of seats with ill-concealed disappointment. Then his eye caught the one occupied by our friend's coat.

"Let me have this seat!" said he abruptly.

"Oh, how are you, Mr. Rogers!" exclaimed the young lawyer.

"Certainly! Let me give you a light."

"Your name's Baldwin, isn't it?" inquired the banker as he took up a magazine. "Saw you about that trust matter last week, didn't I?"

"Yes," answered Baldwin. "Nothing has occurred in connection with it since then."

And he returned to his paper without paying any further attention to his companion. At Bridgeport a telegraph boy rushed into the car and yelled: "Baldwin! Mr. Baldwin!"

Mr. Baldwin held out his hand, in which lay half a dollar, and without much apparent interest opened the envelope and scanned its contents.

"H'm!" he remarked, half inwardly, and thrust the paper into his pocket.

At New Haven another boy boarded the train, calling anxiously for Everitt P. Baldwin--this time there were two telegrams; and just as the train pulled out a third arrived.

Mr. Baldwin read them all with the keenest interest and could hardly conceal an exclamation of satisfaction; but the magnate gave no sign. At New London there was another flurry and, in spite of himself, Mr. Baldwin slapped his knee and muttered: "Good enough!"

As the train started again Morgan H. Rogers let fall his magazine and growled half-facetiously:

"What the devil are all those telegrams about?"

"Just a little injunction suit," the young man answered modestly, "in which my firm has been quite successful." And, without giving any names--for, indeed, there were none--he sketched rapidly a hypothetical situation of the greatest legal delicacy, in which he had tied up an imaginary railroad system with an injunction, supposedly just made permanent. Morgan H. Rogers became interested and offered Mr. Baldwin a remarkably big cigar. He had been having a few troubles of his own of a similar character. In a few moments the two were deep in the problems of one of the financier's own transcontinental lines and a week later Baldwin was on Rogers'

regular staff of railroad attorneys.

It is pleasant to reflect upon such happy incidents in the history of a profession that probably offers more difficulties to the beginner than any other. Yet the very obstacles to success in it are apt to develop an intellectual agility and a flexibility of morals which, in the long run, may well lead not only to fortune, but to fame--of one sort or another. I recall an incident in my own career, upon my ingenuity in which, for a time, I looked back with considerable professional pride, until I found it a common practice among my elders and contemporaries of the criminal and even of the civil bar.

It so happened that I had an elderly client of such an exceedingly irascible disposition that he was always taking offence at imaginary insults and was ready to enter into litigation of the fiercest character at the slightest excuse. Now, though he was often in the right, he was nevertheless frequently in the wrong--and equally unreasonable in either case. He was turned over to me in despair by another and older attorney, who could do nothing with him and wished me joy in my undertaking. I soon found that the old gentleman's guiding principle was "Millions for defence, but not one cent for tribute." In other words, as he always believed himself to have been imposed upon, he litigated almost every bill that was presented to him, with the result that three times out of five judgment was given against him. He had himself studied for the bar and had a natural fondness for technicalities; and he was quite ready to pay handsomely any one he believed to be zealously guarding his interests.

He was, at the time I became acquainted with him, nearly seventy years of age and his chief diversion was to sit in my office and harangue me upon his grievances. Being a sort of sea-lawyer himself he was forever devising quaint defences and strange reasons why he should not pay his creditors; and he was ever ready to spend a hundred dollars in lawyers' fees in order to save fifty. This is the most desirable variety of client a lawyer can have.

One trifling weakness, common to mankind in general, gave him much encouragement; for he soon discovered that, rather than incur the trouble of hiring lawyers and going to court, his creditors would usually compound with him for considerably less than their just claims. This happened so frequently that he almost never paid a bill in the first instance, with the natural result that those who had sent him honest bills before, after one or two experiences with him, made it a practice to add thirty per cent. or so to the total, in order that they might later on gracefully reduce their demands without loss. Thus my client, by his peevishness, actually created the very condition regarding which, out of an overactive imagination, he had complained originally without just cause.

It so happened that the first matter in which he required my services was a dispute over a tailor's bill that he regarded as excessive.

He had ordered a pair of trousers without inquiring the price and was shocked to discover that he had been charged three dollars more than for his last pair. The tailor explained at great length that the first had been summer weight and that these were winter weight; but to no purpose.

"You think you can take advantage of me because I'm an old man!"

he shrieked in rage. "But you'll find out. Just wait until I see my lawyer!"

So down he came to my office and fumed and chattered for an hour or more about the extra three dollars on his trousers. If he had been less abusive the tailor might have overlooked the matter; but even a tailor has a soul, and this time the man swore to have the law on his cantankerous customer.

"Fight to the last ditch!" shouted the old man. "Don't yield an inch!"

A day or two later the tailor served my client, whose name was Wimbleton, with a summons and complaint; and I was forced to put in an answer, in which I took issue upon the reasonable value of the trousers. By the time I had drawn the papers and listened to my client's detailed history of the transaction, as well as his picturesque denunciation of his opponent, I had already put in about a hundred dollars' worth of my time without any prospect of a return. I knew that if the case were tried it would mean a day lost for myself and a judgment against my client. The old fellow had a large amount of property, however, and I was willing to take a loss if it meant future business. Yet the time involved and the trifling character of the suit annoyed me and I resolved to take it upon myself to settle the matter over my client's head.

On my way home I stopped in at the tailor's and told him to take his three dollars and discontinue his action, which he was glad enough to do. The next day I wrote Mr. Wimbleton that I had forced his enemy to capitulate--horse, foot, and dragoons--and that the suit had been withdrawn. My embarra.s.sment may be imagined when my client arrived at the office in a state of delirious excitement and insisted not only on inviting me to dinner, but on paying me fifty dollars for services in giving him the satisfaction of beating the tailor. Instantly I saw a means of entirely satisfying the old man and earning some good fees without the slightest exertion.

The same method--although for another purpose--will be recalled by my readers as having been invoked by the unjust steward who called his lord's debtors to him and inquired how much they owed. One, if I remember correctly, said a hundred measures of oil.

"Take thy bill," said the steward, "and sit down quickly, and write fifty."

Another, who confessed to owing a hundred measures of wheat, the steward let off with eighty. On discovering what he had done his lord commended him for having done wisely, on the ground that the children of this world were wiser than the children of light.

Thus, it will be observed, my early Biblical training stood me in practical stead; and the only difference between the unjust steward and myself lay in the manner in which we were each eventually treated by our respective masters. Indeed, I found this Scriptural scheme so profitable and effective that soon my client swore I was the cleverest lawyer he had ever employed.

Some one would commence a suit against him for damages for breach of contract amounting to a couple of thousand dollars, where he thought he ought to pay only fifteen hundred, but where he really had no defense. I would file an elaborate answer setting up all sorts of defences, move for an examination of the plaintiff and of his books and papers, secure a bill of particulars and go through all sorts of legal hocus-pocus to show how bitterly I was contesting the case as a matter of principle. Before the action came to trial, however, I would settle it for one thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars, telling my client that we had brought the other side to his terms, and charge him seven hundred and fifty dollars for my services--thus netting five hundred dollars in fees.

Often, when the amount sued for was small--say, fifty or one hundred dollars--and where my client had absolutely declined to pay anything, I paid the claim in full, simply for the satisfaction of leading him to believe that he had been successful in resisting what he regarded as an unjust or excessive demand.

This went on for several years, until, quite by chance, one of his creditors, with whom I had settled over his head, either out of forgetfulness or an evil wish to do me a bad turn, wrote him a letter thanking him for his generosity. The next day he appeared, purple with rage, and for some unaccountable reason, instead of "commending" me, denounced me for a shyster. And this in spite of the undoubted fact that my pacific methods had probably saved him hundreds of dollars!

It was about this time that Gottlieb devised a truly brilliant scheme, which had to commend it the highly desirable quality of being absolutely safe.

There is a very wise provision of our law to the effect that, where a wife desires to bring an action against her husband for divorce and is without means for the purpose, the courts will allow her a counsel fee and alimony _pendente lite_. The counsel fee is to enable her to pay a lawyer and prepare for trial, and the amount usually varies from one hundred to one thousand dollars.

One morning my partner came grinning into my office and showed me a very soiled and wrinkled paper.

"What d'ye think of that?" he laughed.

The doc.u.ment, which turned out to be an affidavit executed in Chicago, read as follows:

"STATE OF ILLINOIS ) "COOK COUNTY, CITY OF CHICAGO ) ss.

"LIZZIE YARNOWSKI, being duly sworn, deposes and says that she is over twenty-one years of age and engaged in the employment of making artificial flowers; that in the year 1881 the defendant induced her to leave her home in New York and journey with him in the West under a promise of marriage, representing himself to be a traveling salesman employed by a manufacturer of soda fountains; that they were married on July 5, 1881, in the town of Piqua, Ohio, by a justice of the peace under the names of Sadie Bings and Joshua Blank, and by a rabbi in Chicago on August 17, 1881; that two weeks thereafter defendant deserted plaintiff and has never since contributed toward her support, and that she has since learned that the defendant is a banker and a broker, doing business on Wall Street in the city of New York."

The affidavit then went on to state that the defendant had given the plaintiff good grounds for seeking for a divorce and that she was without means to engage counsel or prepare for trial. The contents of the paper was skilfully worded so as to convey the impression that the deponent was a woman of somewhat doubtful character herself, but that on the other hand she had been tricked by the defendant into a secret--and what he intended to be a temporary--marriage. Attached thereto was another affidavit from the justice of the peace to the effect that on the date in question he had united in the holy bonds of matrimony a man and a woman who had given the names of Sadie Bings and Joshua Blank.

"Well, Gottlieb," said I, "this is interesting reading, whether it be fact or fiction; but what is its significance to us?"

"Why," answered my a.s.sociate, "these are the papers I propose to use on a motion for counsel fee and alimony in a divorce action brought against Mr. Chester Gates, a broker downtown--and, I may add, a very rich and respectable young gentleman. Of course, I have no personal knowledge of the matter, as the case has been sent to us by one of our legal friends in Chicago; but I am quite sure that the court will grant me a counsel fee in order to enable the poor woman to prepare her case and bring it to trial."

"But," I replied, "we have made just such applications a thousand times before, have we not?"

Gottlieb gave me one of his long, slow winks.

"Not just like this," said he, and went back into his room, while I pondered on what I had read.

A few days later Gottlieb served the complaint in an action for absolute divorce upon Mr. Chester Gates, to the young man's great indignation and annoyance; and shortly thereafter a very respectable and prosperous old family lawyer called upon us to explain that the whole matter was a mistake and that his client had never, never been married, and knew no Miss Lizzie Yarnowski, either as Sadie Bings or under any other name.

Gottlieb and I treated him with the greatest deference, explaining that we had no option but to go on with the matter, as we were only acting for our Chicago correspondent. At this the old lawyer grew very indignant and muttered something under his breath about perjury and blackmail, to which, however, neither Gottlieb nor I paid any attention. A week or so later we made our motion for alimony and counsel fee _pendente lite_, and in spite of the vehement affidavit of Chester Gates, Esquire, that he had never seen or heard of the plaintiff nor been married to anybody in his life, the court granted us two hundred and fifty dollars as counsel fee.

This was made payable at our office, as the attorneys for plaintiff; and a day or two later Mr. Gates himself called and asked to see us. He was a rosy-cheeked, athletic young fellow, who could, I fancy, have knocked both our heads together had he chosen to do so.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen," said he, closing the door and seating himself at Gottlieb's invitation. This is a very interesting experience you are putting me through. I am made the defendant in a divorce action and ordered to pay you two hundred and fifty dollars on affidavits that I know are perjured from start to finish.

Well, if that's law I have nothing to say. Of course, you can't win your case, because you can't prove that I ever married anybody --which latter fact, of course, you very well know. I would never pay you a cent to settle this or any other unfounded suit, and I never did anything for which you or any other scoun--beg pardon, I mean lawyer--could blackmail me. But this is a new one on me.

You have got a court order that I am to pay you two hundred and fifty dollars to bring a bogus action against myself. Well, here's my check for it. I congratulate you. Now, I'm amused to see what you're going to do next. I want to get something for may money."