Another counsel in a similar condition of haziness hurriedly entered the Court and took up the case in which he was engaged; but forgetting for which side he had been fee'd, to the unutterable amazement of the agent, delivered a long and fervent speech in the teeth of the interests he had been expected to support. When at last the agent made him understand the mistake he had made, he with infinite composure resumed his oration by saying: "Such, my lord, is the statement you will probably hear from my brother on the opposite side of the case. I shall now show your lordship how utterly untenable are the principles and how distorted are the facts upon which this very specious statement has proceeded." And so he went over the same ground and most angelically refuted himself from the beginning of his former pleading to the end.
ANDREW CROSBIE, ADVOCATE, "Pleydell."
When a barrister, pleading before Lord Mansfield, pronounced a Latin word with a false quantity his lordship rarely let the opportunity pass without exhibiting his own precise knowledge of that language. "My lords," said the Scottish advocate, Crosbie, at the bar of the House of Lords, "I have the honour to appear before your lordships as counsel for the Curătors."—"Ugh," groaned the Westminster-Oxford law lord, softening his reproof by an allusion to his Scottish nationality, "Curātors, Mr. Crosbie, Curātors: I wish our countrymen would pay a little more attention to prosody."—"My lord," replied Mr. Crosbie, with delightful readiness and composure, "I can assure you that our countrymen are very proud of your lordship as the greatest senātor and orātor of the present age."
A very young Scottish advocate, afterwards an eminent judge on the Scottish Bench, pleading before the House of Lords, ventured to challenge some early judgments of that House, on which he was abruptly asked by Lord Brougham: "Do you mean, sir, to call in question the solemn decisions of this venerable tribunal?"—"Yes, my lord," coolly replied the young counsel, "there are some people in Scotland who are bold enough to dispute the soundness of some of your lordship's own decisions."
Sheriff Logan, when pleading before Lord Cunningham in a case which involved numerous points of form, on some of which he ventured to express an opinion, was repeatedly interrupted by old Beveridge, the judge's clerk—a great authority on matters of form—who unfortunately possessed a very large nasal organ, which literally overhung his mouth. "No, no," said the clerk, as the sheriff was quietly explaining the practice in certain cases. On which Logan, somewhat nettled at the blunt interruption, coolly replied: "But, my lord, I say: 'Yes, yes, yes,' in spite of Mr. Beveridge's noes."
In the days of Sheriff Harper, Mr. Richard Lees, solicitor, Galashiels, was engaged in a case for a client who was not overburdened with the necessary funds for legal proceedings. However, he was thought good enough for the expenses in the case. The action went against Mr. Lees' client, and then Mr. Lees rose to plead for modified expenses. But the client leant across to speak to the lawyer and said in a hoarse whisper audible over the Court: "Dinna stent (limit) yoursels for the expenses for a haena a fardin'." This was too much even for the gravity of the Bench.