"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.