The Confessions of Artemas Quibble Part 3

"Oh," he grunted. "Well, in that case perhaps you won't get it."

Somehow I had taken a s.h.i.+ne to the fellow, for all his robbery of poor Toby, and I admired his quickness of perception and readiness of speech. Perhaps he too felt not unkindly toward me. At any rate I told him my story.

"Now," says I, "what d'ye make of it?"

Gottlieb laughed.

"Was he a fat little turkey with gray eyes?" he inquired.

"The same," I replied.

"Then it was Tom Kelly," he answered. "On his daily still hunt for the maimed, the halt and the blind. You say the chap had been run over by the stage? Well, Tom'll take his case on a contingent fee--fifty per cent. to Tom and fifty per cent. to the client of all that comes of it--bring an action against the stage line and recover heavy damages. Oh, it's terrible to think what that poor injured young man will suffer. To-day he may feel quite well, but to-morrow he will have all kinds of pains in his head and eyes, his spine will ache, he will experience symptoms of a nervous breakdown. He will retire to bed and not emerge for six months, and when he does he'll be a hopeless and helpless cripple for life.

Tom is an artist, he is, in his own line. They tell me he made sixty thousand last year out of his accident practice alone. Why, the case he gave you twenty to keep out of may net him five thousand dollars."

"If I'd known that it would have cost him fifty!" I said, feeling that an unjust advantage had been taken of me.

"Twenty is the regular rate," answered Gottlieb. "There are too many chances to make it worth much more merely to get the other fellow out of the way. Sometimes, though, I've paid as high as fifteen hundred for a case."

"Fifteen hundred!" exclaimed I.

"Yes, and got a verdict of nineteen thousand, of which I pocketed ninety-five hundred and four hundred dollars costs besides."

"Whew!" I whistled.

"Oh, there's pretty good pickin's on occasion even for a police- court lawyer," he continued; "but it's nothin' to the return from what I might call legitimate practice. Now, there's old Haight, of Haight & Foster, for instance. He gets half a dozen twenty- thousand-dollar fees every year, and all he has is strictly old- fas.h.i.+oned probate and real-estate practice and a little of this new-fangled railroad business. My great regret is that I didn't stick to regular trade instead of going after easy money. Who's Gottlieb now? Just a police-court lawyer, when he might be arguing before the Supreme Court of the United States! My brain's just as good as Haight's. I've licked him many a time in my young days.

And then I get tired of all this hogwas.h.!.+ I tell you it's dirty business, most of it!"

"Well," I answered, remembering "scienter," "I've no doubt that you could beat them all. But I fancy you have nothing to complain of in the way of returns, yourself. What worries me is how to get any start at all. I've tried half the law offices in town."

Gottlieb listened with some interest as I outlined my experiences.

"But," he exclaimed, "you didn't go to the right person. You should have tackled the head of the firm himself. Find some sort of introduction. Flatter him. Offer to work for nothing--and, trust me, he'll have you. Now, my advice is to go straight to old Haight and make up your mind to get into his office w.i.l.l.y-nilly. It'll be worth three thousand a year to you to graduate from there.

It'll give you the tone you need in the profession. There are two qualities that make for the highest success in the law--honesty and dishonesty. To get ahead you must have one or the other. You must either be so irreproachable in your conduct and elevated in your ideals that your reputation for virtue becomes your chief a.s.set, or, on the other hand, so crooked that your very dishonesty makes you invaluable to your clients. Both kinds of lawyers are equally in demand. Some cases require respectability and some dirty work. But the crooked lawyer has got to be so crooked that everybody is afraid of him, even the judge. Now, the trouble with me is that I'm too honest. Sometimes I wish I were a crook like the rest of them!"

He sighed deeply and slowly drew down his left eyelid.

"Thank you, Mr. Gottlieb," said I, suppressing an inclination to smile. "I'll take your advice. Perhaps you'll let me talk to you again later on."

"Come as often as you like," he replied. "And look you, young- feller-me-lad, I'll give you half of all the profits I make out of any business you bring me. You don't have to be a lawyer to get clients. Hustle around among your friends and drum up some trade and you'll do almost as well as if you could try cases yourself.

For every dollar I earn you get another. Is it a go?"

"Surely!" I cried. "And if I'm not very much mistaken I'll not be long about it, for I have an idea or two in my head already."

The next day I again presented myself at the office of Haight & Foster, where I had already applied for a position to the chief clerk. This time I asked for the head of the firm himself, and I was amused to see that whereas before I had been almost kicked out of the office, I was now treated with the respect due to a possible client. After a wait of some twenty minutes I was ushered into a large sunny office lined with books and overlooking the lower East River. Mr. Haight was a wrinkled old man with a bald scalp covered with numerous brown patches about the size of ten-cent pieces. A fringe of white hair hung about his ears, over one of which was stuck a goose-quill pen. He looked up from his desk as I entered and eyed me sharply.

"Well, Mr. Quibble," he began gruffly, as if he were about to add, "out with what you have to say, young man, and be gone as soon as possible!"

"Mr. Haight," said I with great defence, "I have called on you at the suggestion of my guardian and trustee, Mr. Tuckerman Toddleham, of Barristers' Hall, Boston, to inquire whether I may not be allowed the great privilege of a desk in your office. I am a Harvard man, born in Salem, and of an old Ma.s.sachusetts family. Ever since I made up my mind as a boy to enter the law it has been my ambition to study in your office; and, I may add, it is also the earnest hope of my guardian, Mr. Toddleham."

"Do you refer to the Mr. Toddleham of 'Toddleham on Perpetuities'?"

he asked with some interest.

"The same," I answered, for although I had never heard of the work in question, it seemed just the sort for old Toddleham's production.

"I am glad to know you, Mr. Quibble," he exclaimed, extending his hand. "I have often wished that I could meet your guardian and ask the great Mr. Toddleham face to face what he really thinks of the Rule in Sh.e.l.ley's Case--what do you think of it? What _was_ the Rule in Sh.e.l.ley's Case, may I ask?"

Now, I had never heard of the rule in question, so for want of a better answer I replied:

"The law is no respecter of person. I suppose the rule was _the same in his case as in any other_."

Mr. Haight looked at me strangely for a moment and suddenly began to chuckle. Then he eyed me again and chuckled still more. Finally he laid aside all modestly and hugged himself with delight.

"I see that you are a man of _esprit!_" he remarked between spasms.

"I shall be glad to take you into my office. You may go and introduce yourself to Mr. Spruggins, the chief clerk."

Thus it was that I secured my first slender foothold at the bar of New York, and it was not for several years that I discovered that the Toddleham who had written the book on Perpetuities was an entirely different person, belonging to another branch of the family.

Of course I received no compensation for my services at Haight & Foster's, but that was the customary rule with all students. As a result we were not strictly tied down in our attendance at the office. I really believe it would have been cheaper for the firm to have paid a small salary to their clerks, for it would then have been in a position to demand much more of them in return. As it was I found myself able to come and go about as I chose, and being obliged to support myself in some way my attendance at the office was quite irregular. But I was started at last and belonged somewhere. No longer was it necessary for me to wander about the streets looking for a place to hang my hat, and I already had schemes in mind whereby I was soon to become rich.

My a.s.sociates in the office were all scholarly, respectable young men, most of them law-school graduates and scions of well-known families, and I was not insensible to the advantage to me that my connection with them might be later on. It was essential that I should impress them and the firm with my seriousness of purpose, and so I made it a point, unpleasant as I found it, to be on hand at the office every morning promptly at eight-thirty o'clock, ready to arrange papers or serve them, and to be of any a.s.sistance, no matter how menial, to Mr. Spruggins, whose sense of dignity I took pains to flatter in every way possible. In the afternoon, however, I slipped away on the pretext of having to go uptown to study, but in point of fact in order to earn enough money to pay for my board and lodging.

I had been cogitating several ideas since I had visited Gottlieb, and the one that appealed to me the most was that of procuring of business for other lawyers upon a percentage basis. I reasoned that there must be several hundred thousand people in the city who had no acquaintance with lawyers and would be as ready to consult one as another. Reputable lawyers did not advertise, to be sure, but I was not yet a lawyer, and hence many courses were open to me at this stage in my career that would be closed later on. I had considerable confidence in my own persuasive ability and felt that it was only a question of time before I could drum up a substantial amount of business. Accordingly I had a few cards neatly printed on glossed board reading:

MR. ARTEMAS QUIBBLE BROADWAY OF HAIGHT & FOSTER Contracts ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW Mortgages 10 WALL STREET Tax Matters NEW YORK CITY General Advice

The Haight & Foster end of the card was done in very heavy type, while my own name was comparatively inconspicuous. Further to a.s.sist my plans I rented a tiny office not far from Madison Square for the sum of two dollars per week and furnished it with a table, two chairs, and an inkpot. The door bore the inscription:

OFFICE OF ARTEMAS QUIBBLE, ESQ.

COUNSELLOR

The reader will observe that not being authorized as yet to practice as an attorney I was scrupulous not to hold myself out as one.

"Counsellor" might mean anything. Certainly I had the right to give counsel to such as desired it. Here I might be found at and after half-past one of every day, having already done five hours'

work at the office of Haight & Foster. I still had enough funds to carry me for some three weeks and so felt no immediate anxiety as to the future, but I realized that I must lose no time in getting out my tentacles if I were to drag in any business. Accordingly I made myself acquainted with the managers and clerks of the neighboring hotels, giving them the impression, so far as I could, that Haight & Foster had opened an uptown office and that I was in charge of it. I made friends also with the proprietors and barkeepers of the adjacent saloons, of which there were not a few, and left plenty of my cards with them for distribution to such of their customers as might need legal a.s.sistance, in each case promising that any business which they secured would be liberally rewarded.

In short, I made myself generally known in the locality and planted the seed of cupidity in the hearts of several hundreds of impecunious persons. It was very necessary for me to net ten dollars per week to live, and under the circ.u.mstances it seemed reasonable to believe that I could do so.

Almost at the outset I had a piece of luck, for a guest at a Fifth Avenue hotel was suddenly stricken with a severe illness and desired to make a will. It was but a few days after I had called upon the manager, and, having me fresh in his mind, he sent for me. The sick man proved to be a wealthy Californian who was too far gone to care who drew his will so long as it was drawn at all, and I jotted down his bequests and desires by his bedside. I had originally intended to go at once to Mr. Haight and turn the matter over to him, but my client seemed so ill that it appeared hardly necessary.

I persuaded myself with the argument that the affair required a more immediate attention than the office could give, and accordingly decided to draw the will myself and incidentally to earn the whole fee. The proceeding seemed honest enough, since, although I had been introduced as representing Haight & Foster, the sick man had never heard of them before and obviously did not care one way or the other.

I had never drawn a will or any other legal paper, but I lost no time in slipping around to Gottlieb's office and borrowing a work on surrogates' practice, including forms, with which under my arm I hurried back to my office. Here after a good many unsuccessful attempts I produced a doc.u.ment sufficiently technical to satisfy almost any layman and probably calculated to defeat every wish of the testator. Of this, however, I was quite ignorant, and do myself the justice to say that, had not that been the case, I would not have attempted what I now know to have been an impossible task for one of my lack of legal education. I carefully engrossed the will in long hand on fresh foolscap, ornamented it with seals and ribbons and, returning to the hotel, superintended its execution. My client asked my how much was my fee and I modestly replied--as I never expected to see him again this side of the grave--that my charge would be one hundred and fifty dollars. He nodded, and indicating his pocketbook, told me to help myself, which I did, regretting not having asked for more. That night he died, and my impromptu will was forwarded to California and became the subject of a litigation lasting over eleven years and costing several hundred thousand dollars.

It thus happened that my eagerness to begin to build up my material fortunes, coupled with the necessity of having a technical connection with a regular firm of lawyers, resulted in my leading a sort of double legal existence. In the morning I was a mere drudge or office devil, in the afternoon I was Counsellor Quibble, head of his own office and my own master. Having now a capital of one hundred and fifty dollars I was in a position to put one of my schemes into practice, and accordingly I drew up with great care the following instrument, copies of which I had struck off by a theatrical job printer near by:

====================================================================== THIS AGREEMENT made this . . . . day of . . . . . . . . , 1878, between . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , of the City and County of New York, party of the first part, and Artemas Quibble, Esquire, of the same, party of the second part, WITNESSETH:

That the said party of the first part in consideration of one dollar to him in hand paid upon the first day of each month by the party of the second part, hereby covenants and agrees to employ at a reduced rate the said party of the second part to look after all the legal matters that my arise in his business and to recommend said party of the second part to his friends and acquaintances as a suitable person to perform the like services for them; in the latter event the said party of the first part to receive as a further consideration a commission of one-third of the fees of the party of the second part procured therefrom.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF we have hereunto set our hands and seals the day and year above named.