“ ‘I’ll give you all dish monies if you’ll make Hans do justice mit de pridge.’
“ ‘How much will it cost to repair this bridge?’ asked the attorney.
“ ‘Well, den, not more ash five tollars.’
“ ‘Very well,’ said the legal gentleman, pocketing one of the notes and giving the Dutchman the other, ‘take this and go and get the bridge repaired. It’s the best course you can take.’
“ ‘Yaas,’ responded the client slowly, ‘y-a-a-s, dat ish more better as to quarrel mit Hans.’
“But as he went home, he shook his head frequently, as if unable, after all, quite clearly to see how he had gained anything by going to the lawyer.”
[ii-15] This narrative is based on two interviews, secured for the author from Henry Rice, in the autumn of 1907 and in the spring of 1908, respectively. See, also, Markens, 24.
[ii-16] Lincoln’s refusal to take what he considered a bad case is in harmony, as far as civil actions go, with the practice of every high-minded lawyer. David Hoffman, of the Baltimore bar, drawing up, early in the nineteenth century, a code of ethics for the guidance of his students throughout their professional careers, prescribed as the eleventh of fifty resolutions: “If, after duly examining a case, I am persuaded that my client’s claim or defense (as the case may be) cannot, or rather ought not to be sustained, I will promptly advise him to abandon it. To press it further in such a case, with the hope of gleaning some advantage by an extorted compromise, would be lending myself to a dishonorable use of legal means in order to gain a portion of that, the whole of which I have reason to believe would be denied to him both by law and justice.”
[ii-17] Holland, 126; Browne, 162. But see Lamon, 317, for McHenry’s account of a somewhat similar interview that had a different termination.
[ii-18] “Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this.” (Notes for Law Lecture, in Works, ii, 142.)