As we talked that night and on succeeding occasions, Donn Piatt told me many interesting anecdotes of his career as a newspaper correspondent much given to getting into difficulty with men in high place by reason of his freedom in criticism and his vitriolic way of saying what he had to say in the most effective words he could find.
"You see the dictionary was my ruin," he said after relating one of his anecdotes. "I studied it not wisely but too well in my youth, and it taught me a lot of words that have always seemed to me peculiarly effective in the expression of thought, but to which generals and statesmen and the other small fry of what is called public life, seem to have a rooted objection. By the way, did you ever hear that I once committed arson?"
I pleaded ignorance of that incident in his career, and added:
"I shall be interested to hear of that crime if you're sure it is protected by the statute of limitations. I shouldn't like to be a witness to a confession that might send you to the penitentiary."
"Oh, I don't know that that would be so bad," he interrupted. "I'm living with my publisher now, you know, and a change might not prove undesirable. However, the crime is outlawed by time now. And besides, I didn't myself set fire to the building. I'm guilty only under the legal maxim 'Qui facit per alium facit per se.' The way of it was this: When I was a young man trying to get into a law practice out in Ohio, and eager to advertise myself by appearing in court, a fellow was indicted for arson. He came to me, explaining that he had no money with which to pay a lawyer, but that he thought I might like to appear in a case so important, and that if I would do the best I could for him, he stood ready to do anything for me that he could, by way of recompense. I took the case, of course. It was a complex one and it offered opportunities for browbeating and 'balling up' witnesses—a process that specially impresses the public with the sagacity of a lawyer who does it successfully. Then, if by any chance I should succeed in acquitting my client, my place at the bar would be assured as that of 'a sharp young feller, who had beaten the prosecuting attorney himself.'
"But in telling my client I would take his case the demon of humor betrayed me. Just across the street from my lodging was a negro church, and there was a 'revival' going on at the time. They 'revived' till two o'clock or later every night with shoutings that interfered with my sleep. With playful impulse I said to the accused man:
"'You seem to be an expert in the arts of arson. If you'll burn that negro church I'll feel that you have paid me full price for my service in defending you.'
"I defended him and, as the witnesses against him were all of shady character, I succeeded in securing his acquittal. About four o'clock the next morning a fire broke out under all four corners of that negro church, and before the local fire department got a quart of water into action, it was a heap of smouldering ashes—hymn-books and all. A week or so later I received a letter from my ex-client. He wrote from St. Louis, 'on his way west,' he said. He expressed the hope that I was 'satisfied with results,' and begged me to believe that he was 'a man of honor who never failed to repay an obligation or reward a service.'"