After Billington bade us good-night, Gottlieb said to me:
"Quib, the more I think of it, the more astonishing is the result of this new doctrine of yours that has been sanctified by the Court of Appeals. I do not for the life of me see how a seller of 'green goods' can be prosecuted. The countryman comes to the city for the purpose of buying counterfeit money at a ridiculously low figure. He puts up his money and gets a package of blank paper with a genuine one-dollar bill on top of it. What good will it do him to appeal to the police? Has he not parted with his money avowedly for a most wicked purpose—that of uttering counterfeit bills?"
"I quite agree with you," I answered. "There seems to be no escape from your result; and I, for one, do not see what is to prevent New York from becoming the Mecca of all the thieves and rogues in the country."
And such, indeed, it became. From this time on, until very recently, the metropolis was the stamping ground of all the rogues who could not earn a dishonest living elsewhere. With our friend Charles as their sponsor, there sprang into being herds of "sick engineers," fake "wire-tappers," "green-goods" swindlers, and confidence men of all sorts, who flourished safely under the protection of the decision of the Court of Appeals in McDuff's case.
It was but shortly after this that one of Billington's friends found himself in the toils of the police for having pretended to sell a package of "green goods" to a yokel from the rural part of the State. Charlie at once engaged me to defend him, asserting that as I was responsible for the law it was my duty to apply it for the benefit of our clients. So once again I entered the arena in behalf of a principle that at heart I believed to be vicious and even absurd, and once again, to my surprise and the delight of my new clients, I triumphed. The Appellate Division reversed the conviction that had followed the arrest and discharged the prisoner, asserting that there was no longer any authority for holding him if the McDuff case was to be taken as law.
Thus it was, by such unconscious steps, that I, the only son of a clergyman, found myself—willy-nilly—a leader of the criminal bar. Yet at no time during my career would I have exchanged places with my honored parent or even with Mr. Tuckerman Toddleham, of Barristers' Hall, Boston.
CHAPTER VI
As I jot down these random reminiscences I am impressed in a singular fashion with the fact that my career consisted entirely in the making, or rather getting, of money and the spending of it. I had no particular professional ambitions and never but once sought distinction as a constitutional lawyer; and, however unworthy of an officer of the court such a confession may be, I am quite ready to admit that a seat upon the bench would have afforded me neither amusement nor sufficient compensation to satisfy my desires. Let other men find their gratification and emolument in the supposed honor of wearing the ermine! I have never found that a judge became any the less an erring human being after his elevation to the dais, and I could rake out of one good semi-criminal case twice the salary of any judge on the supreme bench. What is popularly regarded as respectability is oft-times in reality—if the truth were known— merely stodginess and stupidity.
I am compelled to admit that in my early days, before I had formed my affiliation with Gottlieb, I had different ambitions, although they were none the less worldly. Then I wanted to be a judge because I supposed a judge was the king-pin of the profession. Now, as Pat Flanagan says, "I know different." The judge is apt to be no less a tool of the boss than any other public officer elected by the suffrages of a political party. He is merely less obviously so. There are a few men in Wall Street who can press a button and call for almost any judge they want—and he will come— and adjourn court if necessary to do so—with his silk hat in his hands. And if any young aspirant for legal honors who reads these fugitive memoirs believes that the road to the supreme bench leads via Blackstone, and is lighted by the midnight oil of study, let him disabuse himself of that idea, but seek rather the district leader; and let him make himself useful in getting the boys that are in trouble out of it. Under our elective system there is no more honor in being a judge than in being a sheriff or a hog-reeve; but, when one is young—and perhaps starving—it may seem otherwise.
If any of my lay readers believe that the practice of the law is a path of dalliance, let him but hazard his fortunes for a brief space on the good ship Jurisprudence—he will find the voyage tedious beyond endurance, the ship's company but indifferent in character and the rations scanty. I make no doubt but that it is harder to earn an honest living at the law than by any other means of livelihood. Once one discovers this he must perforce choose whether he will remain a galley slave for life or hoist the Jolly Roger and turn freebooter, with a chance of dangling betimes from his own yard-arm.