A solicitor who was known to occasionally exceed the limit at lunch betrayed so much unsteadiness that the magistrate quickly observed, "I think, Mr. ——, you are not quite well, perhaps you had a little too much wine at lunch."—"Quite a mistake, your worship," hiccoughed Mr. ——. "It was brandy and water."
The son-in-law of a Chancery barrister having succeeded to the lucrative practice of the latter, came one morning in breathless haste to inform him that he had succeeded in bringing nearly to its termination a cause which had been pending in the Court for several years. Instead of obtaining the expected congratulations of the retired veteran of the law, his intelligence was received with indignation. "It was by this suit," exclaimed he, "that my father was enabled to provide for me, and to portion your wife, and with the exercise of common prudence it would have furnished you with the means of providing handsomely for your children and grandchildren."
CHAPTER THREE
THE JUDGES OF IRELAND
"So slow is justice in its ways
Beset by more than customary clogs,
Going to law in these expensive days
Is much the same as going to the dogs."
Willock: Legal Facetiæ.