The segars, the glass, and the pleasant scenery, teeming as was the last with movement and life, appeared, for the moment, to drive from the minds of the two men of the law the business on which they had met. It was a proof of the effect of habit that a person like Dunscomb, who was really a good man, and one who loved his fellow-creatures, could just then forget that a human life was, in some measure, dependent on the decisions of this very interview, and permit his thoughts to wander from so important an interest. So it was, however; and the first topic that arose in this consultation had no reference whatever to Mary Monson or her approaching trial, though it soon led the colloquists round to her situation, as it might be without their intending it.
“This is a charming retreat, ’Squire Dunscomb,” commenced Timms, settling himself with some method in a very commodious arm-chair; “and one that I should often frequent, did I own it.”
“I hope you will live to be master of one quite as pleasant, Timms, some time or other. They tell me your practice, now, is one of the best in Duke’s; some two or three thousand a year, I dare say, if the truth were known.”
“It’s as good as anybody’s on our circuit, unless you count the bigwigs from York. I won’t name the sum, even to as old a friend as yourself, ’Squire; for the man who lets the world peep into his purse, will soon find it footing him up, like a sum in arithmetic. You’ve gentlemen in town, however, who sometimes get more for a single case, than I can ’arn in a twelvemonth.”
“Still, considering your beginning, and late appearance at the bar, Timms, you are doing pretty well. Do you lead in many trials at the circuit?”
“That depends pretty much on age, you know, ’Squire. Gen’rally older lawyers are put into all my causes; but I have carried one or two through, on my own shoulders, and that by main strength too.”
“It must have been by your facts, rather than by your law. The verdicts turned altogether on testimony, did they not?”
“Pretty much—and that’s the sort of case I like. A man can prepare his evidence beforehand, and make some calculations where it will land him; but, as for the law, I do not see that studying it as hard as I will, makes me much the wiser. A case is no sooner settled one way, by a judge in New York, than it is settled in another, in Pennsylvany or Virginny.”
“And that, too, when courts were identical, and had a character! Now, we have eight Supreme Courts, and they are beginning to settle the law in eight different ways. Have you studied the Code pretty closely, Timms?”
“Not I, sir. They tell me things will come round under it in time, and I try to be patient. There’s one thing about it that I do like. It has taken all the Latin out of the law, which is a great help to us poor scholars.”