‘Mine eleventh in number,’ said Peter; ‘I have a new one every year; I wish I could get a new coat as regularly.’
‘Your agent for the time,’ resumed my father; ‘and you, who are acquainted with the forms, know that the client states the cause to the agent—the agent to the counsel’—
‘The counsel to the Lord Ordinary,’ continued Peter, once set a-going, like the peal of an alarm clock, ‘the Ordinary to the Inner House, the President to the Bench. It is just like the rope to the man, the man to the ox, the ox to the water, the water to the fire’—
‘Hush, for Heaven’s sake, Mr. Peebles,’ said my father, cutting his recitation short; ‘time wears on—we must get to business—you must not interrupt the court, you know.—Hem, hem! From this abbreviate it appears’—
‘Before you begin,’ said Peter Peebles ‘I’ll thank you to order me a morsel of bread and cheese, or some cauld meat, or broth, or the like alimentary provision; I was so anxious to see your son, that I could not eat a mouthful of dinner.’
Heartily glad, I believe, to have so good a chance of stopping his client’s mouth effectually, my father ordered some cold meat; to which James Wilkinson, for the honour of the house, was about to add the brandy bottle, which remained on the sideboard, but, at a wink from my father, supplied its place with small beer. Peter charged the provisions with the rapacity of a famished lion; and so well did the diversion engage him, that though, while my father stated the case, he looked at him repeatedly, as if he meant to interrupt his statement, yet he always found more agreeable employment for his mouth, and returned to the cold beef with an avidity which convinced me he had not had such an opportunity for many a day of satiating his appetite. Omitting much formal phraseology, and many legal details, I will endeavour to give you, in exchange for your fiddler’s tale, the history of a litigant, or rather, the history of his lawsuit.
‘Peter Peebles and Paul Plainstanes,’ said my father, entered into partnership, in the year—, as mercers and linendrapers, in the Luckenbooths, and carried on a great line of business to mutual advantage. But the learned counsel needeth not to be told, SOCIETAS EST MATER DISCORDIARUM, partnership oft makes pleaship. The company being dissolved by mutual consent, in the year—, the affairs had to be wound up, and after certain attempts to settle the matter extra-judicially, it was at last brought into the court, and has branched out into several distinct processes, most of whilk have been conjoined by the Ordinary. It is to the state of these processes that counsel’s attention is particularly directed. There is the original action of Peebles v. Plainstanes, convening him for payment of 3000l., less or more, as alleged balance due by Plainstanes. Secondly, there is a counter action, in which Plainstanes is pursuer and Peebles defender, for 2500l., less or more, being balance alleged per contra, to be due by Peebles. Thirdly, Mr. Peeble’s seventh agent advised an action of Compt and Reckoning at his instance, wherein what balance should prove due on either side might be fairly struck and ascertained. Fourthly, to meet the hypothetical case, that Peebles might be found liable in a balance to Plainstanes, Mr. Wildgoose, Mr. Peebles’s eighth agent, recommended a Multiplepoinding, to bring all parties concerned into the field.’
My brain was like to turn at this account of lawsuit within lawsuit, like a nest of chip-boxes, with all of which I was expected to make myself acquainted.
‘I understand,’ I said, ‘that Mr. Peebles claims a sum of money from Plainstanes—how then can he be his debtor? and if not his debtor, how can he bring a Multiplepoinding, the very summons of which sets forth, that the pursuer does owe certain monies, which he is desirous to pay by warrant of a judge?’ [Multiplepoinding is, I believe, equivalent to what is called in England a case of Double Distress.]
‘Ye know little of the matter, I doubt, friend,’ said Mr. Peebles; ‘a Multiplepoinding is the safest REMEDIUM JURIS in the whole; form of process. I have known it conjoined with a declarator of marriage.—Your beef is excellent,’ he said to my father, who in vain endeavoured to resume his legal disquisition; ‘but something highly powdered—and the twopenny is undeniable; but it is small swipes—small swipes—more of hop than malt-with your leave, I’ll try your black bottle.’