CHAPTER III

I am free to confess that the ease with which Counsellor Gottlieb had deprived my friend Toby of the ill-gotten proceeds of his check —or, for his sake putting it more politely, had earned his fee— was the chief and inducing cause that led me to adopt the law as a career. I shall not pretend that I had any lofty aims or ambitions, felt any regard for its dignity or fascination for the mysteries of its science when I selected it for my profession. My objects were practical—my ambition to get the largest financial return consonant with the least amount of work. My one concrete experience of the law had opened my eyes to its possibilities in a way that I had never dreamed of, and I resolved to lose no time in placing myself in a position to rescue others from harm on the same pecuniary basis as did Mr. Gottlieb.

Of course I realized that I must serve an apprenticeship, and indeed the law required that were I not a graduate of a law school that I must have worked as a clerk for two years before I could be admitted to the bar. Accordingly I began to make inquiries as to what were the best law firms in the city, and before long had acquired pretty definite information as to who were and who were not in high standing. Now, I had no letters of introduction and nothing to recommend me except a certain degree of maturity and a cultivated manner of speaking, and I might and probably should have been trying to this day to break into some sedate and high-toned old-fogy office had it not been for one of those accidents with which my career has been replete.

I had visited all the firms on my list without finding any who wanted to take in a student. Indeed all the offices seemed filled if not crowded with studious-looking young men whose noses were buried in law books. In one or two, to be sure, I might have secured admittance and been given desk room in exchange for the services of my legs as a runner of errands and a server of papers, but none had any idea of paying anything. The profession at the bottom was more overcrowded than the gallery of the Academy of Music when they ran Rosedale. Each night as I returned to my lodgings I felt more and more discouraged. Its smell of cabbage came to have for me an inexpressible sensation of relief, of protection, even of luxury. Here, at any rate, even in an actors' boarding-house, I was independent, as good as anybody, and not regarded as if I were a beggar on the one hand or a questionable character on the other.

How long this might have continued I have no means of knowing, but one afternoon as I was trudging uptown, still holding in my hand a copy of a legal journal, the advertisements in which I had been engaged in sedulously running down, my attention was attracted by a crowd gathered in the street around a young man who had been so unfortunate as to be run over by a stage. There was nothing external to indicate the extent of his injuries, and as I drew nearer two persons assisted him to his feet and began to lead him toward the nearest store. Having nothing better to do I walked along with them, and after they had gone inside remained looking curiously through the window. While I was thus engaged a stout, bustling man of about forty years of age came hurrying down the sidewalk and turned to enter the store. As he did he observed me apparently waiting there and his eye with a quick glance took in the title of the paper in my hand. Instantly he stepped up beside me and tapping me on the arm said in a low tone:

"Whom do you represent?"

I was somewhat taken aback by this inquiry, not seeing at the moment its immediate relation to the business at hand, but for want of a better answer I replied in the same spirit:

"Artemas Quibble."

"Oh! Quibble, eh! I've heard of him. But look here, my young friend, there is no reason why honest men should cut one another's throats. Tell my friend Quibble I was here before ye and keep this for yourself."

And with that he peeled a twenty-dollar bill from the top of a heavy roll that he produced from his pocket and placed it within my palm.

"Very good," said I. "It may cost me dear if Quibble hears of it, but a man must live, and I work at starvation wages."

I placed the bill in my breast pocket and made way for him to enter the store, which he did without more ado. Why this busy gentleman should gratuitously present me with twenty dollars did not at the moment occur to me. I continued on my way northward, pondering upon the question, and passed the street upon which the police court was located and Counsellor Gottlieb had his office. The thought came into my mind that here was the very person to shed light upon the subject and I turned the corner and opened the door. Gottlieb was in his customary position with his feet elevated upon the table before him.

"Well," he said, "I didn't expect you back so soon."

"I've come for free advice this time," I answered.

"Oh," he grunted. "Well, in that case perhaps you won't get it."

Somehow I had taken a shine to the fellow, for all his robbery of poor Toby, and I admired his quickness of perception and readiness of speech. Perhaps he too felt not unkindly toward me. At any rate I told him my story.

"Now," says I, "what d'ye make of it?"

Gottlieb laughed.

"Was he a fat little turkey with gray eyes?" he inquired.

"The same," I replied.

"Then it was Tom Kelly," he answered. "On his daily still hunt for the maimed, the halt and the blind. You say the chap had been run over by the stage? Well, Tom'll take his case on a contingent fee—fifty per cent. to Tom and fifty per cent. to the client of all that comes of it—bring an action against the stage line and recover heavy damages. Oh, it's terrible to think what that poor injured young man will suffer. To-day he may feel quite well, but to-morrow he will have all kinds of pains in his head and eyes, his spine will ache, he will experience symptoms of a nervous breakdown. He will retire to bed and not emerge for six months, and when he does he'll be a hopeless and helpless cripple for life. Tom is an artist, he is, in his own line. They tell me he made sixty thousand last year out of his accident practice alone. Why, the case he gave you twenty to keep out of may net him five thousand dollars."

"If I'd known that it would have cost him fifty!" I said, feeling that an unjust advantage had been taken of me.

"Twenty is the regular rate," answered Gottlieb. "There are too many chances to make it worth much more merely to get the other fellow out of the way. Sometimes, though, I've paid as high as fifteen hundred for a case."

"Fifteen hundred!" exclaimed I.

"Yes, and got a verdict of nineteen thousand, of which I pocketed ninety-five hundred and four hundred dollars costs besides."

"Whew!" I whistled.

"Oh, there's pretty good pickin's on occasion even for a police- court lawyer," he continued; "but it's nothin' to the return from what I might call legitimate practice. Now, there's old Haight, of Haight & Foster, for instance. He gets half a dozen twenty- thousand-dollar fees every year, and all he has is strictly old- fashioned probate and real-estate practice and a little of this new-fangled railroad business. My great regret is that I didn't stick to regular trade instead of going after easy money. Who's Gottlieb now? Just a police-court lawyer, when he might be arguing before the Supreme Court of the United States! My brain's just as good as Haight's. I've licked him many a time in my young days. And then I get tired of all this hogwash! I tell you it's dirty business, most of it!"

"Well," I answered, remembering "scienter," "I've no doubt that you could beat them all. But I fancy you have nothing to complain of in the way of returns, yourself. What worries me is how to get any start at all. I've tried half the law offices in town."

Gottlieb listened with some interest as I outlined my experiences.

"But," he exclaimed, "you didn't go to the right person. You should have tackled the head of the firm himself. Find some sort of introduction. Flatter him. Offer to work for nothing—and, trust me, he'll have you. Now, my advice is to go straight to old Haight and make up your mind to get into his office willy-nilly. It'll be worth three thousand a year to you to graduate from there. It'll give you the tone you need in the profession. There are two qualities that make for the highest success in the law—honesty and dishonesty. To get ahead you must have one or the other. You must either be so irreproachable in your conduct and elevated in your ideals that your reputation for virtue becomes your chief asset, or, on the other hand, so crooked that your very dishonesty makes you invaluable to your clients. Both kinds of lawyers are equally in demand. Some cases require respectability and some dirty work. But the crooked lawyer has got to be so crooked that everybody is afraid of him, even the judge. Now, the trouble with me is that I'm too honest. Sometimes I wish I were a crook like the rest of them!"

He sighed deeply and slowly drew down his left eyelid.

"Thank you, Mr. Gottlieb," said I, suppressing an inclination to smile. "I'll take your advice. Perhaps you'll let me talk to you again later on."

"Come as often as you like," he replied. "And look you, young- feller-me-lad, I'll give you half of all the profits I make out of any business you bring me. You don't have to be a lawyer to get clients. Hustle around among your friends and drum up some trade and you'll do almost as well as if you could try cases yourself. For every dollar I earn you get another. Is it a go?"

"Surely!" I cried. "And if I'm not very much mistaken I'll not be long about it, for I have an idea or two in my head already."

The next day I again presented myself at the office of Haight & Foster, where I had already applied for a position to the chief clerk. This time I asked for the head of the firm himself, and I was amused to see that whereas before I had been almost kicked out of the office, I was now treated with the respect due to a possible client. After a wait of some twenty minutes I was ushered into a large sunny office lined with books and overlooking the lower East River. Mr. Haight was a wrinkled old man with a bald scalp covered with numerous brown patches about the size of ten-cent pieces. A fringe of white hair hung about his ears, over one of which was stuck a goose-quill pen. He looked up from his desk as I entered and eyed me sharply.

"Well, Mr. Quibble," he began gruffly, as if he were about to add, "out with what you have to say, young man, and be gone as soon as possible!"

"Mr. Haight," said I with great defence, "I have called on you at the suggestion of my guardian and trustee, Mr. Tuckerman Toddleham, of Barristers' Hall, Boston, to inquire whether I may not be allowed the great privilege of a desk in your office. I am a Harvard man, born in Salem, and of an old Massachusetts family. Ever since I made up my mind as a boy to enter the law it has been my ambition to study in your office; and, I may add, it is also the earnest hope of my guardian, Mr. Toddleham."

"Do you refer to the Mr. Toddleham of 'Toddleham on Perpetuities'?" he asked with some interest.

"The same," I answered, for although I had never heard of the work in question, it seemed just the sort for old Toddleham's production.

"I am glad to know you, Mr. Quibble," he exclaimed, extending his hand. "I have often wished that I could meet your guardian and ask the great Mr. Toddleham face to face what he really thinks of the Rule in Shelley's Case—what do you think of it? What was the Rule in Shelley's Case, may I ask?"

Now, I had never heard of the rule in question, so for want of a better answer I replied:

"The law is no respecter of person. I suppose the rule was the same in his case as in any other."

Mr. Haight looked at me strangely for a moment and suddenly began to chuckle. Then he eyed me again and chuckled still more. Finally he laid aside all modestly and hugged himself with delight.

"I see that you are a man of esprit!" he remarked between spasms. "I shall be glad to take you into my office. You may go and introduce yourself to Mr. Spruggins, the chief clerk."

Thus it was that I secured my first slender foothold at the bar of New York, and it was not for several years that I discovered that the Toddleham who had written the book on Perpetuities was an entirely different person, belonging to another branch of the family.