MONODY ON THE DEATH OF AN ONLY CLIENT
Oh! take away my wig and gown,
Their sight is mock’ry now to me:
I pace my chambers up and down,
Reiterating “Where is he?”
Alas! wild echo, with a moan,
Murmurs above my fever’d head:
In the wide world I am alone;
Ha! ha! my only client’s—dead.
In vain the robing room I seek;
The very waiters scarcely bow;
Their looks contemptuously speak,
“He’s lost his only client now.”
E’en the mild usher, who of yore,
Would hasten when his name I said,
To hand in motions, comes no more,
He knows my only client’s dead.
Ne’er shall I, rising up in court,
Open the pleadings of a suit:
Ne’er shall the judges cut me short,
While moving them for a compute.
No more with a consenting brief
Shall I politely bow my head;
Where shall I run to hide my grief?
Alas! my only client’s dead.
Imagination’s magic power
Brings back, as clear as clear can be,
The spot, the day, the very hour,
When first I sign’d my maiden plea.
In the Exchequer’s hindmost row,
I sat, and some one touch’d my head,
He tendered ten-and-six, but oh!
That only client now is dead.
In vain, I try to sing—I’m hoarse:
In vain I try to play the flute,
A phantom seems to flit across,—
It is the ghost of a compute.
I try to read—but all in vain;
My chambers listlessly I tread;
Be still, my heart; throb less, my brain;
Ho! ho! my only client’s dead.
I think I hear a double knock;
I did—alas! it is a dun.
Tailor—avaunt! my sense you shock;
He’s dead! you know I had but one!
What’s this they thrust into my hand?
A bill returned!—ten pounds for bread!
My butcher got a large demand;
I’m mad! my only client’s dead.
Chamber Practice.—Messenger (from studious party in the floor below). “If you please, sir, master’s compliments, and he says he’d be much obliged if you’d let him know when the repairs will be finished, for the knocking do disturb him so!”
Reform your Lawyers’ Bills.—There is one consolidation of the statutes that would be very useful—to make them so solid that no lawyer could drive a coach-and-six through them.
First Litigant. “I’m bankruptcy. What are you?”
Second L. “I’m divorce.”
First L. “Then you stand lunch!”