CHAPTER III.
“I am informed thoroughly of the cause.
Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew?”
Merchant of Venice.
Such was the substance of the communication that Doctor McBrain now made to his friend, Tom Dunscomb. The latter had listened with an interest he did not care to betray, and when the other was done he gaily cried—
“I’ll tell the widow Updyke of you, Ned!”
“She knows the whole story already, and is very anxious lest you should have left town, to go to the Rockland circuit, where she has been told you have an important case to try.”
“The cause goes over on account of the opposite counsel’s being in the court of appeals. Ah’s me! I have no pleasure in managing a cause since this Code of Procedure has innovated on all our comfortable and venerable modes of doing business. I believe I shall close up my affairs, and retire, as soon as I can bring all my old cases to a termination.”
“If you can bring those old cases to a termination, you will be the first lawyer who ever did.”
“Yes, it is true, Ned,” answered Dunscomb, coolly taking a pinch of snuff, “you doctors have the advantage of us, in this behalf; your cases certainly do not last for ever.”