My next task was to boom my scheme by successful advertising, and with this in view I persuaded Gottlieb to issue free policies to a dozen or so of the worst rascals that he knew. Naturally it was not long before one of them was arrested for some offence, and Gottlieb as naturally succeeded in getting him off, with the natural result that the fellow went all over town telling how one could be a burglar with impunity for ten dollars a year. At about the same time I heard of a man who was in the Tombs charged with murder, but who was almost certain to get off on account of the weakness of the case against him. I, therefore, visited the defendant and offered to give him a policy for ten dollars, in spite of the fact that he was already in jail. He snatched readily enough at the chance of getting as good a lawyer as Gottlieb to defend him for ten dollars, and when he was acquitted made so much of it that there was hardly a prisoner in the Tombs who did not send for one of our policies to guard against future legal difficulties. To all of these we offered free advice and a free trial upon the charges pending against them, as a sort of premium or inducement to become policy-holders, and in six months had over two hundred subscribers. This meant in cash about two thousand dollars, but it necessitated defending any or all of them whenever they were so unfortunate as to run foul of the police, and as luck would have it out of the two hundred policy-holders forty-seven of them were arrested within the first six months—fifteen for burglary, eleven for robbery and assault, sixteen for theft, and five for murder. These latter cases took all of Gottlieb's working hours for some seven and a half weeks, at the end of which time he threw up his hands and vowed never to insure anybody against anything again. It was impossible for me to try any of the cases myself, as I was not as yet admitted to the bar, and the end of the matter was that we returned the premiums and cancelled the policies of the remaining one hundred and fifty-three insured. This done, Gottlieb and I heaved sighs of mutual relief.
"You are a clever fellow, Quib," he acknowledged good-naturedly, "but in some ways you are ahead of your time. You ought to have gone into life insurance or railroading. Your genius is wasted on anything that ain't done wholesale. Let's you and me just stick to such clients as come our way in the natural course of events. There isn't any one born yet big enough to do all the criminal law business in this little old town by himself."
And in this I with some regret agreed with him.
CHAPTER IV
As I have already taken some pains to indicate, I was fully persuaded of the practical value of a professional connection with a legal firm of so eminent a standing as that of Messrs. Haight & Foster, and for this reason the reader may easily appreciate the shock with which I received the information that my presence was no longer desired in the office.
Mr. Haight had unexpectedly sent for me word that I was wanted in the library and I had obeyed his summons without a suspicion that my career as a civil attorney was to be abruptly terminated. As I closed the door behind me I saw the old lawyer standing near the window, his spectacles poked above his eyebrows and his forehead red with indignation. Between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand he held a card.
"So," he exclaimed, vainly trying to appear collected, "I find that my firm has been conducting an uptown office for criminal business! This is one of your cards, I believe?"
He tossed it from him as if it were infected with some virulent legal disease, and I saw that it was one of the unfortunate cards that I had had printed before forming my partnership with Gottlieb. It was no use denying anything.
"Yes," I answered, as quietly as I could, "it is one of my cards."
"I am also informed," he continued, his voice trembling with suppressed wrath, "that while you have been masquerading as a student in this office you have been doing a police-court law business in association with a person named Gottlieb."