Since my call to the Bar, have been treating myself to rather a long
roll abroad. Now, however, the time has come to devote myself to the
work of the profession, which seems to mean studying practical law
with some discreet and learned Barrister.
[Illustration: Dick Fibbins.]
Met a few nights ago, at dinner, a very entertaining fellow. Full
of legal anecdotes. Told that it was DICK FIBBINS, a Barrister, "and
rather a rising one." DICK (why not RICHARD?) talked about County
Courts with condescending tolerance; even the High Court Judges seemed
(according to his own account) to habitually quail before his forensic
acumen.
Mentioned to FIBBINS that I had just been "called," and was "thinking
of reading in a Barrister's chambers;" and he seemed to take the most
friendly and generous interest in me at once--asked me, indeed, to
call on him any day I liked at his chambers in Waste Paper Buildings,
which I thought extremely kind, as I was a complete stranger.
Go next day. Clerk, with impressive manner, receives me with due
regard to his principal's legal standing. (_Query_--has a _rising_
Barrister any standing?) Ushered into large room, surrounded with
shelves containing, I imagine, the Law Reports from the Flood
downwards. Just thinking what an excellent "oldest inhabitant"
METHUSELAH would have made in a "Right of Way" case, when DICK FIBBINS
rises from the wooden arm-chair on which he has been sitting at a
table crowded with papers, and bundles tied up in dirty red tape, and
shakes hands heartily.
"What's your line of country?" he asks--"Equity or Common Law?"
I admit that it's Common Law. Have momentary feeling that Equity
sounds better, Why _Common_ Law?
"Quite right," he says, encouragingly; "much the best branch. _I_ am
a Common-Law man too." Refers to it as if it were a moral virtue on
his--and my--part to have avoided Equity. Wonder if Equity men talk
in this way about "Common" Lawyers? If so, oughtn't there to be more
_esprit de corps_ in the Profession?
"Been before old PROSER, Queen's Bench Division, to-day," he proceeds.
"Do you ever sit in Court?"
I reluctantly confess that I have not made an habitual point of doing
so.
"Ah," he says, finding that I can't contradict him as to what did
really happen in old PROSER's Court to-day; "you _should_ have been
there just now. Had BLOWHARD, the great Q.C., opposed to me. But,
bless you, he couldn't do anything to speak of against my arguments.
PROSER really hardly would listen to him once or twice. Made BLOWHARD
quite lose his temper, I assure you."
"So he lost his case, too, I suppose?" I remark, humorously.
"Um," replies FIBBINS, sinking into despondency, "not exactly. PROSER
didn't quite like to decide _against_ BLOWHARD, you know; so he--so
he--er--decided _for_ him, in fact. Of course we appeal. It won't,"
goes on FIBBINS, more cheerfully, "do BLOWHARD's clients a bit of
good. Only run their bill up. I'm safe to win before the Court of
Appeal. Lord Justice GRILL a first-rate lawyer--sure to reverse old
PROSER. I can," he ends with conscious pride, "twist GRILL round my
finger, so to speak."
The idea of twisting a Lord Justice round one's finger impresses me
still more with DICK FIBBINS's legal genius. How lucky I am to have
made his acquaintance! Feel impelled to ask, as I do rather nervously,
not knowing if a bitter disappointment does not await me.
"Do you--er--take legal pupils ever?"
I feel that I've put it in a way that sounds like asking him if he
indulges in drink. But FIBBINS evidently not offended. He answers
briskly, with engaging candour.
"Well, to tell you the truth, though I've often been asked to--quite
pestered about it, in fact--I've never done so hitherto. The
Solicitors don't like it quite--makes 'em think one is wasting the
time which ought to be given to their briefs on one's own pups--I mean
pupils."
Perhaps, after all, FIBBINS will dash my hopes (of becoming his
"pup!" _Query_, isn't the word _infra dig._--or merely "pleasantly
colloquial?") to the ground.
"I was," I say boldly, "going to ask you if you would let _me_ read
with you."
"Were you?" replies DICK, apparently intensely astonished at the idea;
"By Jove! I should be really sorry to disappoint _you_. Yes," he goes
on in a burst of generosity, "I will make room for you--there!"
This is really kind of DICK FIBBINS. We finally arrange that I am to
come in two days' time--at the usual, and rather pretentious, fee of
one hundred guineas for a year's "coaching"--and begin work.
"You'll see some good cases with me--good fighting cases," FIBBINS
remarks, as I take my leave. "When there are no briefs, why, you
can read up the Law Reports, you know. My books are quite at your
disposal."
"But," I remark, a little surprised at that hint about no briefs--I
thought DICK FIBBINS had more than he knew what to do with--"I
suppose--er--there's plenty of business going on here?"
"Oh, heaps," replies FIBBINS, hastily. Then, as if to do away with any
bad impression which his thoughtless observation about no briefs might
have occasioned in my mind, he says, heartily,--
"And, when I take old PROSER up to the Court of Appeal, _you shall
come too, and hear me argue!_"
I express suitable gratitude--but isn't it rather "contempt of Court"
on FIBBINS's part to talk about "taking up" a Judge?--and feel, as I
depart, that I shall soon see something of the real inner life of the
Profession.
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