“What did you get for the oxen in selling them out?”
“Why, somewhere between one hundred and thirty and one hundred and forty dollars—they were noble fellows!”
“And so you want me to help you cheat that honest old man out of those oxen, simply because the law, this human imperfection, gives you the opportunity to do it! No, sir; put up your retention-fee. I promised my dying mother never to do such a thing, and I will starve first. And as for you—if I wanted to help you to go to the state’s prison, I could take no course so sure as to do what you offer to pay me for doing. And, depend upon it, the lawyer who does help you, will be your worst enemy. Plead minority! No; go, sir, and pay for your oxen honestly and live and act on the principle, that let what will come, you will be an honest man.”
The coarse young man snatched up his bill, and muttering something about seeing Squire Snapall, left the office.
So he lost his first fee and his first case. He felt poor and discouraged, when left alone in the office; but he felt that he had done right. His mother’s voice seemed to whisper, “Right, my son, right.” The next day he was in old Maj. Farnsworth’s, and saw a pile of bills lying upon the table. The good old man said he had just received them for a debt which he expected to lose, but a kind Providence had interposed in his behalf. The young lawyer said nothing, but his mother’s voice seemed to come again, “Right, my son, right.”
Some days after this a man called in the evening, and asked the young man to defend him in a trial just coming on.
“What is your case?”
“They accuse me of stealing a bee-hive.”
“A bee-hive!—surely that could not be worth much!”
“No, but the bees and the honey were in it.”