“Well then, Mr. Bumpkin, there is first a history of your life.”
“Good lord, what be that for?”
“I’ll tell you presently—then there’s the history of Mrs. Bumpkin from the cradle.” (Mr. Bumpkin uttered an exclamation which nothing shall induce me to put on paper.) “Then”—and here the young man had reached the third finger of the left hand—“then comes a history of the defendant Snooks.”
“Ah!” said Bumpkin, as though they were getting nearer the mark; “that be summut like—that’ll do un—have you put in about the gal?”
“What’s that?” asked the youth.
“Oh! didn’t thee ’ear? Why, thee ’st left out the best part o’ Snooks’ life; he were keepin company wi’ a gal and left her in t’ lurch: but I ’ope thee ’st shown
up ur carater well in other ways—he be the worst man as ever lived in this ’ere country.”
“Well,” said Horatio, travelling towards his little finger; “then there’s the history of the pig.”
“Zounds!” laughed the farmer, “if ever I eerd tell o’ such a thing in my bornd days. What the devil be the good o’ thic?”
“O, a good deal; the longer you make the brief the more money you get—you are paid by the yard. They don’t pay lawyers accordin’ to the value of their services, but the length of ’em.”