"There, that will do; if you go on any longer, you will make me cry. Tell them about the lawyer who lost his client. Yes, I know the story, but they don't; and I would much rather hear it again than listen to any more of that lugubrious song."
"Well, here goes," said Leech. "I suppose there is no one at this table who neglects to improve his mind by the weekly study of Punch; at any rate, all civilized people are familiar with the illustrations which adorn that famous periodical. Amongst those classical works the other day was a high-art drawing by me, representing a gentleman in a barber's shop, having his hair cut. In the course of talk peculiar to his fraternity, the little hairdresser remarks that his customer's hair is very thin on the top. This mild observation moved the object of it, a person of irascible temper, into ungovernable fury. He springs from his chair, which he upsets in the action, and flying at the terrified barber, he exclaims, 'Confound you, you puppy! Do you think I came here to be insulted and told of my imperfections? I'll thin your top!'
"I'll Thin Your Top."
"Well, I don't see anything particularly facetious in the drawing, but a friend of mine, a lawyer in Bedford Row, did, and laughed whenever he thought of it. Unfortunately, the day on which the drawing was published had been fixed for a consultation upon a matter in which an old and respected client's interests were seriously involved. Legal points of extreme intricacy and difficulty were to be examined and discussed; hopes were to be encouraged, and anxiety appeased. In his information to his legal adviser, the client had arrived at a point of extreme gravity, when my unfortunate drawing obtruded itself upon the legal mind, and so disturbed it as to cause the lawyer to repress a laugh with much difficulty.
"'I see you smile,' said the client. 'Surely the very serious character of the evidence which I put before you should strike you as convin——'
"'Oh, I beg your pardon; I was not smiling.'
"'Well, you did something very like it. I really must ask for your strictest attention to facts which are capable of such absolute—— There you go again! My dear sir, what can there be in my statement to cause a smile? Pray think of the gravity of the case—how deeply my interests are at stake—and give me your most serious attention.'
"'I will—indeed I will,' said the lawyer, mentally devoting me and my drawing to the devil.