MY FIRST CLIENT
(By A. Briefless, Junior)
“Here is something for you, sir,” said a sharp-looking youth, suddenly thrusting into my hand a document.
I quietly put the paper into my pocket without comment (I had no wish to bandy words with the process-server), and reflected that some half-forgotten tailor, or too-long-neglected hatter, was a person of no real delicacy of feeling.
“And will you see to the matter at once?” continued the sharp-looking youth, “as they can’t wait.”
“Certainly,” I replied, with a dignity which I intended should suggest that I had a perfectly fabulous account at Coutts’s. My account at the celebrated banking firm referred to is perfectly fabulous.
“All right, sir. I suppose we shall see you in the morning.”
The youth disappeared, and I journeyed home. As I walked along the Thames Embankment I pondered over the alterations made in our law by the Judicature Acts.
“When I was a younger man,” I murmured to myself, “a copy of a writ, when considered entirely without prejudice, was rather a handsome instrument than otherwise. The direct message from the Sovereign, for instance, used to be very far from ungratifying, although perhaps it would have been better had the greeting been joined to a matter a little less embarrassing, say, than an unsatisfied claim for the value of certain shirts. But nowadays the neat crisp document of the olden time seems to be abandoned for a far more bulky paper—for the packet I have in my pocket!”
However, I threw off my cares, and thought no more of the affair until the next morning, when, putting on my overcoat, I discovered, to my intense astonishment, to my overwhelming joy, that what I had believed to be a writ was actually a brief. I had to sit down on the hall-chair for five minutes to compose myself. My emotion was perfectly painful—it was my first, my maiden brief! The news spread like wildfire through the household, and the distant strains of “Rule, Britannia!” were heard coming from the nursery.
There was but one thing to be done, and I did it. I hurriedly collected all the law-books I possess (Shearwood’s “Abridgment of Real Property,” an odd volume of Stephen’s “Commentaries,” and an early edition of “The Comic Blackstone”), jumped into a hansom, and rattled down to Pump-Handle Court. Arrived there, I handed my brief to my clerk (the sharp-looking youth who had given me the paper turned out to be my clerk), and instructed him to put it in a prominent position in his own room, so that my client, when he arrived, might see it, and conclude that I had so many matters just then in hand that I had not had as yet time to look into his case, which was waiting its turn for consideration with numerous others. I was ashamed to give these instructions, but reflected that it was important, having regard to my professional prospects, that my expected visitor should be kept as long as possible in ignorance of the fact that he was my solitary employer.
“All right, sir,” said my clerk, with a facial gesture which I regret to say savoured of a wink. “He will be here by eleven.”
I now entered my own room. It was rather in disorder. I share my chambers with an intimate friend, and as I am very often away, he sometimes uses my sanctum (entirely with my consent) as a receptacle for empty packing-cases, old cigar-boxes, superfluous window-curtains, and worn-out boots. With the assistance of my clerk, who followed me in, I soon set things to rights, putting on the month-indicator from October to March, filling the inkstand with copying fluid, and removing somebody’s pot-hat from the brows of my bust of the late Lord Chancellor Brougham.
“There, sir, I think that will do now,” said my clerk, with a look of satisfaction, and he left me seated at my desk turning over some dusty brief paper which I had found knocking about in one of the drawers.
My room is a semi-subterranean apartment in a circular tower. I have two small casements looking out upon some gardens, but as I occupy the basement, I can only see the ankles of the passers-by, and am myself free from observation save when some more than usually unruly urchin brings his head level with mine, and makes faces at me through the window.
I repeat I was turning over the dusty brief-paper, and toying with Mr. Shearwood’s very excellent “Abridgment,” when the door was thrown open and my clerk announced, “Someone to see you, sir.”
“You will pardon me,” I said, without looking up, consulting in the meantime the hand-book before me with knitted brows, “but I am engaged for a few moments. I will attend to you directly.”
“Oh, certainly, sir,” replied the new-comer, in the most deferential tone possible; and he took a seat.
I jotted down the incidents of Borough English, frowned as if engaged in deep thought, and then smilingly turned to my visitor, and asked him how I could be of service to him.
“I want you to look into this case, sir,” he began, with a timidity that was as unexpected as it was gratifying—his nervousness gave me confidence.
“By all means,” I responded heartily, dipping a pen into the ink, and putting a fresh sheet of brief-paper over the page I had already used for the incidents of Borough English and a freehand sketch of a British Grenadier, “I shall be glad to hear all about it.”
“I must apologise for intruding upon you, knowing how busy you are, but I thought you would be interested in what I have to place before you.”
“Pray do not apologise,” I hastened to say; and then added, with a little laugh, “I certainly have taken you out of your turn, but then this is our first transaction. I hope it will not be the last.”
“I hope so, too,” replied my client, fervently. “If you will allow me, I will often place things like this before you. I should have come to you earlier only so many gentlemen object to seeing me.”
“Dear me!” I replied, a little surprised. “I suppose some men don’t care to jeopardise their professional reputation by failure. And now, with your permission, I will look into your case.”
“It is here, sir,” he answered, opening a rather large portfolio. “You will notice that these are very beautiful engravings.”
“Certainly,” I returned, making a note on the paper before me; “as you say, most beautiful. No doubt of very considerable value.”
“I am glad you like them, sir. They are forced to be got rid of at an enormous sacrifice.”
“Indeed!” I ejaculated, continuing my notes.
“Yes, sir. They are being sold at something less than cost-price.”
“Really!” And again I jotted down the particulars. Then I said, to show that I comprehended the affair at a glance, “I suppose there has been a dispute about the copyright?”
“No, sir, that’s all right.”
“Ah, to be sure—then there has been a breach of contract?” But finding that this also was not the case, I said, with hearty bonhomie, “Well, my dear sir, as I have made two bad guesses, perhaps you had better tell me what I can do for you.”
My client coughed deferentially, and then produced a paper.
“I beg your pardon, sir, but would you mind signing this?”
I read the document—it ran as follows:—
“To Messrs. Scamp and Vamp.—I hereby agree to purchase one copy of your ‘Pillars of the Law from the Earliest Ages,’ profusely illustrated, in one hundred and fifty-seven monthly parts, at seven shillings and sixpence a part. I further agree to pay for this work annually, at the rate of twelve parts in advance.”
There was a solemn and awful pause. Then I drew myself up to my full height, and in a voice of thunder ordered him out! I know not how he disappeared—in a moment he had vanished, portfolio and all!
Rather fatigued after my late exertions, I called to my clerk, and with weary haughtiness desired him to bring me my brief, as I wished to “glance through the papers.”
“Your brief, sir?” he returned. “Oh, I should have told you, sir, that, while you were talking to the man with the engravings, they called to see you. They said they were in a hurry, and as you were engaged, they would take it to some one else.”
“Take it to some one else!” My maiden brief!
At this point I must pause—for the moment, I can write no more!
A. Briefless, Junior.
HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF. DICKENS UP TO DATE
[“Two burglars, charged with burglary, frankly admitted that the reason they wore gloves was because they didn’t want to leave their finger impressions for identification purposes.”—Daily Paper.]
First Cultured Safe-Breaker. “Harris.”
Second C. S.-B. “Sir.”
First C. S.-B. “Have you got your gloves on?”
Second C. S.-B. “Yes, sir.”
First C. S.-B. “Then take the kiver off!”
MISSING THE POINT
Legal Adviser (speaking technically). “In short, you want to meet your creditors.”
Innocent Client. “Hang it, no! Why, they’re the very people I’m most anxious to avoid!”
A FINAL APPEAL
“Now, gentlemen of the jury, I throw myself upon your impartial judgment as husbands and fathers, and I confidently ask, does the prisoner look like a man who would knock down and trample upon the wife of his bosom? Gentleman, I have done!”
AUTOMATIC ARBITRATION
No more exorbitant fees! No more law! No more trials!
Exclusion.—Policeman (at the Law Courts). “Strict orders to-day, m’m. No one to be admitted unless they’re in wig an’—that is—beg pardon, m’m—barristers, m’m—only barristers!”
Sir Joshua Dogberry. “If you meet a ticket-of-leave man, you may suspect him, by virtue of your office, to be no true man; and, for such kind of men, the less you meddle or make with them the better for your honesty.”—Much Ado about Nothing.
NEWS FROM THE LAW COURTS
Cold but in-vig-orating.