HOB visited BRIEF, with a very long face,
Put a piece in his palm, and then stated his case.
Quoth the Lawyer--“As far as I _yet_ understand,
You are right as my nail, I declare _by this hand_:
But doctors oft differ; so, were you my brother,
I can’t answer, till _that_ too be _fee’d_, for the _other_.
Then spreading his hand, like a churchwarden’s plate,
“Come, come, my good friend, don’t stand scratching your pate!
But _wet t’other eye_, like a fool, as you ought,
Time’s too precious for me thus to waste it for mought.”
Says HOB--“Here’s the stuff! but, as I am a ninny,
I’m handing thee, now, Master BRIEF, my _last_ guinea;
So I hopes as you’ll give me the best of advice!”--
“To be sure! to be sure!” cries BRIEF, “in a trice.
Then, know, that those words which I last heard you say,
Have driv’n all at first that I told you away.
No matter what Cause, or what Lawyer, or Court,
Gold! Gold! my friend HOB, is of all the support:
With that, to each point of the compass we rove;
Without it, the devil a _limb_ of us move!
Ev’ry hope that I had, with your money, is gone;
Your cause is a bad one, and you are undone.
To _stand on_ you hav’n’t, as we say, _a leg_;
And no Lawyer, in England, for you’ll stir a peg.”
HOB look’d mighty sheepish, and mutter’d a curse,
As he saw Lawyer BRIEF put the cash in his purse.
“What you tells me,” he cried, as he slowly withdrew,
“I fears, Master BRIEF, may, for _once_, be too _true_:
But if I durst tell thee a piece of _my_ mind,
Tho’ I _have_ been main _foolish_, I a’n’t yet quite _blind_;
And you _Limbs_ of the _Law_, I now sees very plain,
Be all, as a body may say, _rogues in grain!_
Yes, ecod! had I know half I now know before,
I’d as soon enter’d hell, Master BRIEF, as your door;
And I wish I may suffer, with you, hell’s worst pain,
If ever I visit a Lawyer again!”
* * * * *