MY FIRST CLIENT
(By A. Briefless, Junior)
“Here is something for you, sir,” said a sharp-looking youth, suddenly thrusting into my hand a document.
I quietly put the paper into my pocket without comment (I had no wish to bandy words with the process-server), and reflected that some half-forgotten tailor, or too-long-neglected hatter, was a person of no real delicacy of feeling.
“And will you see to the matter at once?” continued the sharp-looking youth, “as they can’t wait.”
“Certainly,” I replied, with a dignity which I intended should suggest that I had a perfectly fabulous account at Coutts’s. My account at the celebrated banking firm referred to is perfectly fabulous.
“All right, sir. I suppose we shall see you in the morning.”
The youth disappeared, and I journeyed home. As I walked along the Thames Embankment I pondered over the alterations made in our law by the Judicature Acts.
“When I was a younger man,” I murmured to myself, “a copy of a writ, when considered entirely without prejudice, was rather a handsome instrument than otherwise. The direct message from the Sovereign, for instance, used to be very far from ungratifying, although perhaps it would have been better had the greeting been joined to a matter a little less embarrassing, say, than an unsatisfied claim for the value of certain shirts. But nowadays the neat crisp document of the olden time seems to be abandoned for a far more bulky paper—for the packet I have in my pocket!”
However, I threw off my cares, and thought no more of the affair until the next morning, when, putting on my overcoat, I discovered, to my intense astonishment, to my overwhelming joy, that what I had believed to be a writ was actually a brief. I had to sit down on the hall-chair for five minutes to compose myself. My emotion was perfectly painful—it was my first, my maiden brief! The news spread like wildfire through the household, and the distant strains of “Rule, Britannia!” were heard coming from the nursery.