THE CLOWN AND THE LAWYER.
Hob visited Brief, with a very long face,
Put a piece in his palm, and then stated his case.
Quoth the Lawyer—“As far as I yet understand,
You are right as my nail, I declare by this hand:
But doctors oft differ; so, were you my brother,
I can’t answer, till that too be fee’d, for the other.
Then spreading his hand, like a churchwarden’s plate,
“Come, come, my good friend, don’t stand scratching your pate!
But wet t’other eye, like a fool, as you ought,
Time’s too precious for me thus to waste it for mought.”
Says Hob—“Here’s the stuff! but, as I am a ninny,
I’m handing thee, now, Master Brief, my last guinea;
So I hopes as you’ll give me the best of advice!”—
“To be sure! to be sure!” cries Brief, “in a trice.
Then, know, that those words which I last heard you say,
Have driv’n all at first that I told you away.
No matter what Cause, or what Lawyer, or Court,
Gold! Gold! my friend Hob, is of all the support:
With that, to each point of the compass we rove;
Without it, the devil a limb of us move!
Ev’ry hope that I had, with your money, is gone;
Your cause is a bad one, and you are undone.
To stand on you hav’n’t, as we say, a leg;
And no Lawyer, in England, for you’ll stir a peg.”
Hob look’d mighty sheepish, and mutter’d a curse,
As he saw Lawyer Brief put the cash in his purse.
“What you tells me,” he cried, as he slowly withdrew,
“I fears, Master Brief, may, for once, be too true:
But if I durst tell thee a piece of my mind,
Tho’ I have been main foolish, I a’n’t yet quite blind;
And you Limbs of the Law, I now sees very plain,
Be all, as a body may say, rogues in grain!
Yes, ecod! had I know half I now know before,
I’d as soon enter’d hell, Master Brief, as your door;
And I wish I may suffer, with you, hell’s worst pain,
If ever I visit a Lawyer again!”