The Case and Exceptions: Stories of Counsel and Clients

by Frederick Trevor Hill

Messrs. Constable, Glenning and Hertzog were engaged in the general practice of the law, but Hertzog was the only lawyer in the partnership. The others were merely members of the Bar.

Mr. Constable’s aptitudes lay in the line of drumming up business. He was known, although he did not know it, as the “barker” for the firm. He belonged to eight clubs; he was identified with fourteen charities, among which he counted three chairmanships; he was in the vestry of a prosperous church and on the Visiting Board of two hospitals; sixteen corporations published his name as a director, and the same sixteen acknowledged his firm as Counsel. Mr. Constable was in the public eye.

Mr. Glenning was not in the public eye, but he had its ear, provided public was spelled with a capital P and the right political party was in power. Mr. Glenning had been a member of the firm for twenty years, which proved that the right political party generally was in power. What his functions were no one seemed to know, but unquestionably he was a very busy man. A very serious, earnest believer too in his profession was Mr. Glenning, and impatient of the silly slights and slurs ever ready on the tongues of the outsiders. Thus when an alleged wit said something about “more cases being decided at the trench than at the Bench,” Mr. Glenning, who dined more with the Judges and knew them better than any other man in town, snubbed the speaker and disposed of his remark as “a sneer of the unsuccessful.”

Everybody understood Hertzog’s work. It used to be said that his two best clients were Constable and Glenning, but then people are always saying bitter things for want of better.

Mr. Constable was a florid-faced, white-whiskered, well-dressed little man, bright, quick and full of energy. There were those who considered him pompous, and it is true he regarded himself very seriously. But most people took him at his own estimate. In the outer office his manner was sharp, short and decisive; in the inner office he was silent, impressive and indecisive. That is to say he listened thoughtfully, earnestly, sympathetically, intelligently, comprehendingly—in any and every way that inspires confidence, but no one ever lured him into expressing an off-hand opinion. His decisions were always “decisions reserved.”—“Reserved for Hertzog,” muttered “the unsuccessful.”—But luckily Mr. Constable never heard them, for, like Mr. Glenning, he was intolerant of flippancy in every form. He was also intolerant of details.

If anything went wrong in the office Mr. Constable shook off all responsibility for it. “That is a detail of which I know nothing,” was his ever present phrase in time of trouble, and this, accompanied by a wave of his hands, cleared the atmosphere in his vicinity. A detail in Mr. Constable’s meaning was anything uncomfortable to remember. “That is a detail with which I do not charge my memory,” he would say, and he was never contradicted.

There was no firm in the city more prominent than Constable, Glenning and Hertzog, and none more highly esteemed. Possibly Mr. Constable emphasised this a little too often, but perhaps his insistence impressed some of the very people who pretended to laugh at it. “A firm of our standing,” was another of his pet phrases, and on this he rang the changes with such genuine pride that those who did not envy readily forgave him the touch of conceit.

Still there were those who would not have grieved had the firm lost its standing in the Hydroid Fibre case. But the mud there only reached Horton, the office Notary Public, and he went to Sing Sing for his cleansing.

It was at the annual meeting of the great Hydroid Fibre Co., during a bitter fight for control, that one of the stockholders repudiated a proxy bearing his name and carrying votes in favour of Mr. Constable. The signature was an evident forgery, and ugly things were said. Horton, the Notary Public who had witnessed the paper and taken the signer’s “acknowledgment,” was sent for, but could give no adequate explanation.

Mr. Constable, though dumfounded at the disclosure, acted with commendable promptness. He instantly ordered the arrest of Horton and silenced accusation by placing himself in the hands of his counsel, Mr. Hertzog, and demanding an investigation. This inquiry clearly demonstrated that Mr. Constable controlled more votes than were necessary without the disputed shares. Horton swore that the bogus stockholder had been properly identified, and claimed that he had been artfully imposed upon, but of this there was absolutely no proof. Not a trace of the swindler could be found.