“Indeed,” argued Clerk, “naebody kens how lang, and why should my client now be deprived of the watter?” etc.
The Chancellor, much amused at the pronunciation of the Scottish advocate, in a rather bantering tone, asked—“Mr. Clerk, do you spell water in Scotland with two t’s?”
Nettled at this hit at his national tongue, Clerk immediately replied—“No, my Lord, we dinna spell watter in Scotland wi’ twa t’s, but we spell manners in Scotland wi’ twa n’s.”
On one occasion, when he had been pleading a case before Lord Hermand, already mentioned, after he had finished and sat down to receive judgment, his Lordship took up the case rather warmly, and when in the heat of an excited harangue, the saliva from his lips was spurted in the face of the sarcastic advocate.
“I have often heard o’ the dews o’ Hermon,” remarked Clerk, “but I never felt them before.”
Mr. James Wolfe-Murray became a Judge of the Court of Session, under the title of Lord Cringletie. When he was appointed, doubts were expressed by some as to his legal acquirements, and Clerk expressed his view in the following clever epigram:—
“Necessity and Cringletie
Are fitted to a tittle;
Necessity has nae law,
Cringletie has as little.”