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THE CONFESSIONS OF
ARTEMAS QUIBBLE
BEING THE INGENUOUS AND UNVARNISHED HISTORY OF ARTEMAS QUIBBLE,
ESQUIRE, ONE-TIME PRACTITIONER IN THE NEW YORK CRIMINAL COURTS,
TOGETHER WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE DIVERS WILES, TRICKS, SOPHISTRIES,
TECHNICALITIES, AND SUNDRY ARTIFICES OF HIMSELF AND OTHERS OF THE
FRATERNITY, COMMONLY YCLEPT "SHYSTERS" OR "SHYSTER LAWYERS," AS
EDITED
BY
ARTHUR TRAIN
FORMERLY ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY
NEW YORK COUNTY
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1922
COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
PRINTED AT
THE SCRIBNER PRESS
NEW YORK, U.S.A.
ILLUSTRATIONS [omitted]
THE CONFESSIONS OF
ARTEMAS QUIBBLE
CHAPTER I
I was born in the town in Lynn, Massachusetts, upon the twenty-
second day of February, in the year 1855. Unlike most writers of
similar memoirs, I shall cast no aspersions upon the indigent by
stating that my parents were poor but honest. They were poor _and_
honest, as indeed, so far as I have been able to ascertain, have
been all the Quibbles since the founder of the family came over on
the good ship _Susan and Ellen_ in 1635, and, after marrying a
lady's maid who had been his fellow passenger, settled in the
township of Weston, built a mill, and divided his time equally
between selling rum to the Indians and rearing a numerous progeny.
My father, the Reverend Ezra Quibble, was, to be sure, poor enough.
The salary that he received as pastor of his church was meagre to
the degree of necessitating my wearing his over-worn and discarded
clerical vestments, which to some extent may account for my otherwise
inexplicable distaste for things ecclesiastical. My mother was
poor, after wedlock, owing to the eccentricity of a parent who was
so inexorably opposed to religion that he cut her off with a shilling
upon her marriage to my father. Before this she had had and done
what she chose, as was fitting for a daughter of a substantial
citizen who had made a fortune in shoe leather.
I remember that one of my first experiments upon taking up the
study of law was to investigate my grandfather's will in the probate
office, with a view to determining whether or not, in his fury
against the church, he had violated any of the canons of the law
in regard to perpetuities or restraints upon alienation; or whether
in his enthusiasm for the Society for the Propagation of Free
Thinking, which he had established and intended to perpetuate, he
had not been guilty of some technical slip or blunder that would
enable me to seize upon its endowment for my own benefit. But the
will, alas! had been drawn by that most careful of draughtsmen,
old Tuckerman Toddleham, of 14 Barristers' Hall, Boston, and was
as solid as the granite blocks of the court-house and as impregnable
of legal attack as the Constitution.
We lived in a frame house, painted a disconsolate yellow. It
abutted close upon the sidewalk and permitted the passer-by to view
the family as we sat at meat or enjoyed the moderate delights of
social intercourse with our neighbors, most of whom were likewise
parishioners of my father.
My early instruction was received in the public schools of my native
town, supplemented by tortured hours at home with "Greenleaf's
Mental Arithmetic" and an exhaustive study of the major and minor
prophets. The former stood me in good stead, but the latter I fear
had small effect. At any rate, the impression made upon me bore
little fruit, and after three years of them I found myself in about
the same frame of mind as the Oxford student who, on being asked
at his examination to distinguish between the major and minor
prophets, wrote in answer: "God forbid that I should discriminate
between such holy men!"
But for all that I was naturally of a studious and even scholarly
disposition, and much preferred browsing among the miscellaneous
books piled in a corner of the attic to playing the rough-and-tumble
games in which my school-mates indulged.
My father was a stern, black-bearded man of the ante-bellum type,
such as you may see in any old volume of daguerreotypes, and entirely
unblessed with a sense of humor. I can even now recall with a
sinking of the heart the manner in which, if I abjured my food, he
would grasp me firmly by the back of the neck and force my nose
toward the plate of Indian mush--which was the family staple at
supper--with the command, "Eat, boy!" Sometimes he was kind to a
degree which, by a yawning of the imagination, might be regarded
as affectionate, but this was only from a sense of religious duty.
At such times I was prone to distrust him even more than at others.
He believed in a personal devil with horns, a tail, and, I suspect,
red tights; and up to the age of ten I shared implicitly in this
belief. The day began and ended with family prayers of a particularly
long-drawn-out and dolorous character.
My mother, on the other hand, was a pale young woman of an undecided
turn of mind with a distinct taste for the lighter pleasures that
she was never allowed to gratify. I think she secretly longed for
the freedom that had been hers under the broader roof of her father's
stately mansion on High Street. But she had, I suspect, neither
the courage nor the force of mind to raise an issue, and from sheer
inertia remained faithful to the life that she had elected.
My grandfather never had anything to do with either of them and
did not, so far as I am aware, know me by sight, which may account
for the fact that when he died he bequeathed a moderate sum in
trust, "the proceeds to be devoted to the support and maintenance
of the child of my daughter Sarah, at some suitable educational
institution where he may be removed from the influences of his
father."
Thus it was that at the age of nine I was sent away from home and
began an independent career at the boarding-school kept by the
Reverend Mr. Quirk, at Methuen, Massachusetts. Here I remained
for seven years, in the course of which both my parents died,
victims of typhoid. I was cast upon the world utterly alone, save
for the rather uncompromising and saturnine regard in which I was
held by old Mr. Toddleham, my trustee. This antique gentleman
inhabited a musty little office, the only furniture in which
consisted of a worn red carpet, a large engraving of the Hon.
Jeremiah Mason, and a table covered with green baize. I recall
also a little bronze horse which he used as a paper weight. He
had a shrewd wrinkled face of the color of parchment, a thick yellow
wig, and a blue cape coat. His practice consisted almost entirely
in drawing wills and executing them after the decease of their
respective testators, whom he invariably outlived, and I think he
regarded me somewhat in the light of a legal joke. He used to send
for me twice a year, for the sole purpose, I believe, of ascertaining
whether or not I was sufficiently nourished at Quirk's establishment.
On these occasions he would take me to lunch with him at the Parker
House, where he invariably ordered scallops and pumpkin pie for me
and a pint of port for himself.
On my departure he would hand me solemnly two of the pieces of
paper currency known as "shin plasters," and bid me always hold my
grandfather's memory in reverence. On one of these occasions, when
he had laid me under a similar adjuration, I asked him whether he
had ever heard of the man who made his son take off his hat whenever
he met a pig--on the ground that his father had made his money in
pork. He stared at me very hard for a moment with his little
twinkling eyes and then suddenly and without any preliminary symptoms
exploded in a cackle of laughter.
"Goddamme," he squeaked, "I wish your gran'ther could a' heard y'
say that!"
Then without further explanation he turned and made his way down
School Street and I did not see him for another six months.
My life at Quirk's was a great improvement over the life I had led
at home in Lynn. In the first place I was in the real country,
and in the second I had the companionship of good-natured, light-
hearted people. The master himself was of the happy-go-lucky sort
who, with a real taste for the finer things of literature and life,
take no thought for the morrow or indeed even for the day. He was
entirely incapable of earning a living and had been successively
an actor, a lecturer, a preacher, and a pedagogue. He was a fine
scholar of Latin and could quote Terence, Horace, and Plautus in
a way that could stir the somnolent soul even of a school-boy.
His chief enemy, next to laziness, was drink. He would disappear
for days at a time into his study, and afterward explain that he
had been engaged in the preparation of his _magnum opus_, which
periodically was just on the point of going to press.
During these interludes the school was run by Mrs. Quirk, a robust,
capable, and rosy Englishwoman, who had almost as much learning as
her husband and ten times as much practical ability. There were
twelve boys in the school, for each of whom the Quirks received
the modest sum of two hundred and seventy-five dollars a year. In
exchange for this they gave board, lodging, and tuition. Each of
us received separate instruction--or as Quirk expressed it "individual
attention"--and excellent instruction it was. We arose at six,
breakfasted at six-thirty, and helped around the house until eight,
when our studies began. These continued until twelve, at which
time we had dinner. After that we were free until two-thirty, when
we resumed our labors until four.
Quirk was a tall, lank, loose-jointed man, with long black hair
that lay well over his Byronic collar. He had a humorous eye and
a cavernous mouth that was always twisting itself into grimaces,
alternately side-splitting and terrifying. On occasions he would
use the birch--and very thoroughly, too, as I have reason to remember
--but he ruled us by fear of authority. For though he dressed like
a clergyman, he always smelled strongly of stale cigar smoke, and
his language at times was more forcible than is generally expected
of a wearer of the cloth.
I dwelt with the Quirks, winter and summer, until I was able to
pass my examinations for Harvard, which I did in the summer of
1871. My allowance had been gradually increased to meet my new
expenses, and I entered the freshman class with an income sufficient
to permit me to dress suitably and enjoy myself in such simple ways
as were in vogue among the collegians. But coming as I did, alone,
from a small boarding-school, proved to be a great disadvantage,
for I had all my friends to make after my arrival and I had neither
the means nor the address to acquire ready-made social distinction.
Thus it happened that I was very lonely during my first years in
Cambridge; missed the genial companionship of my old friends, the
Quirks, and seized every opportunity that offered for going back
to Methuen.
I had grown into a tall, narrow-shouldered youth, with a high-arched
nose between rather pale cheeks, and prominent ears. Though I
could hardly flatter myself into the belief that I was handsome,
I felt that my appearance had something of distinction and that I
looked like a gentleman. I affected coats with long tails and a
somewhat dandified style of waistcoat and neck-cloth, as well as
a white beaver, much in favor among the "bloods" of those days.
But this took most of my available cash, and left me little to
expend in treating my fellow students at the tavern or in enjoying
the more substantial culinary delights of the Boston hotels. Thus
though I made no shabby friends I acquired few genteel ones, and
I began to feel keenly the disadvantages of a lean purse. I was
elected into none of the clubs, nor did I receive any invitations
to the numerous balls given in Boston or even to those in Cambridge.
This piqued my pride, to be sure, but only intensified my resolution
to become a man of fashion on my own account. If my classmates
could get on without me I felt that I could get on without them,
and I resolutely declined to appreciate any social distinction that
might artificially exist between a man born in Salem and one born
in Lynn, although I now understand that such distinction exists,
at least so far as Boston society is concerned. Consequently as
time went on and I could achieve prominence in no other way, I
sought consolation for the social joys denied by my betters in
acquiring the reputation of a sport. I held myself coldly aloof
from the fashionable men of my class and devoted myself to a few
cronies who found themselves in much the same position as my own.
In a short time we became known as the fastest set in college, and
our escapades were by no means confined to Cambridge, but were
carried on with great impartiality in Boston and the neighboring
towns.
We organized a club, which we called the Cock and Spur, and had a
rat-pit and cock-fights in the cellar, on which occasions we invited
out young actors from the Boston Museum and Howard Athenaeum stock
companies. These in turn pressed us with invitations to similar
festivities of their own, and we thus became acquainted with the
half-world of the modern Athens, which was much worse for us, I
trow, than would have been the most desperate society of our college
contemporaries. There was a club of young actors that we used to
frequent, where light comedy sketches and scenes from famous plays
were given by the members, and in due time several of us were
admitted to membership. Of these I was one and learned to do a
turn very acceptably. On one occasion I took a small part upon
the Boston Museum stage to fill the place made vacant by the illness
of a regular member of the cast--an illness due in part to a carousal
at the Cock and Spur the night before, in which he had come out
second best.
We were a clever crew, however, and never gave the faculty reason
to complain of any failure on our part to keep up in our studies.
When examination time came we hired an impecunious coach and,
retiring from the world, acquired in five days knowledge that our
fellows had taken eight months to imbibe. It is true that the
college at large viewed us with some disgust, but we chose to regard
this as mere envy. That we were really objectionable must, however,
be admitted, for we smoked cigars in the Yard, wore sky-blue
pantaloons and green waistcoats, and cultivated little side whiskers
of the mutton-chop variety; while our gigs and trotters were
constantly to be seen standing in Harvard Square, waiting for the
owners to claim them and take the road.
On Sundays, when the decorous youths of Boston had retired to Beacon
Street for their midday family feast of roast beef and baked beans,
the members of the Cock and Spur might be observed in their white
beaver hats driving countryward in chaises from the local livery
stables, seated beside various fair ladies from the Boston stage
or the less distinguished purlieus of the Cambridge chop-houses.
At noon these parties would foregather at some country tavern and
spend long afternoons singing, drinking, and playing draw poker
and other games of chance; and occasionally we would fight a main
of cocks in some convenient pig-pen.
But this sort of life took money, and I soon found myself borrowing
freely from my associates, most of whom were young fellows from
other States who had already come into their inheritances and had
gone to Harvard to get rid of them under the most approved conditions.
For these I came to stand as a sort of sponsor, and was looked up
to by them as a devil of a fellow, for I swore picturesquely and
had a belligerently unpleasant manner that was regarded as something
quite out of the ordinary and distinguished. These youthful
spendthrifts I patronized and taught the mysteries of a sporting
life, and for a time it became quite smart for a fellow to have
gone on one of "Quib's" notes. These notes, however, increased
rapidly in number, and before long amounted to such a prodigious
sum that they gave me great uneasiness.
My habits had become extravagant and careless. Having no money at
all I took no heed of what I did with that of others, for I hardly
believed that I could ever repay any of it. But I continued on in
my luxurious ways, well knowing that any change in my mode of life
would precipitate a deluge. The safety of my position lay in owing
everybody, and in inducing each to believe that he would be the
one person ultimately or immediately to be paid. Moreover, I was
now completely spoiled and craved so ardently the enjoyments in
which I had indulged that I would never of myself have had the will
to abjure them. I had gained that which I sought--reputation. I
was accounted the leader of the fast set--the "All Knights" as we
were known--and I was the envy and admiration of my followers.
But this bred in me an arrogance that proved my undoing. It was
necessary for me to be masterful in order to carry off the pose of
leadership, but I had not yet learned when to conciliate.
It so happened that in the spring of my junior year my creditors
became more than usually pressing, and at the same time a Jew by
the name of Poco Abrahams began to threaten suit on a note of mine
for two thousand dollars, which I had discounted with him for seven
hundred and fifty. I made my usual demands upon my friends and
offered to do them the favor of letting them go on some more of my
paper, but without the usual result. I then discovered to my
annoyance that a wealthy young fellow know as "Buck" de Vries, who
had considered himself insulted by something that I had said or
done, had been quietly spreading the rumor that I was a sort of
hocus-pocus fellow and practically bankrupt, that my pretensions
to fashion were ridiculous, and that I made a business of living
off other people. Incidentally he had gone the rounds, and, owing
to the rumors that he himself had spread, had succeeded in buying
up most of my notes at a tremendous discount. These he lost no
time in presenting for payment, and as they amounted to several
thousand dollars my hope of reaching a settlement with him was
small. In point of fact I was quite sure that he wanted no settlement
and desired only revenge, and I realized what a fool I had been to
make an enemy out of one who might have been an ally.
In this embarrassing situation I bethought me of old Mr. Toddleham,
and accordingly paid him an unexpected visit at Barristers' Hall.
It was a humid spring day, and I recall that the birds were twittering
loudly in the maples back of the Probate Office. As befitted my
station at the time of year, I was arrayed in a new beaver and a
particularly fanciful pair of rather tight trousers.
"Come in," squeaked Mr. Toddleham, and I entered easily.
The old lawyer peered quizzically at me from behind his square-
boned spectacles.
"Oh," said he, "it's you, Master Quibble."
"The same, and your most obedient," I replied, letting myself fall
gracefully into a chair and crossing my legs.
"You want money, I suppose?" he continued, after a few minutes,
during which he inspected by get-up with some interest.
"Well," I commenced lightly, "the fact is I am rather pressed. I
thought if you could make me a small advance out of my grandfather's
legacy--"
"Legacy! What legacy?" he inquired.
"The legacy my grandfather left me."
"He left you no legacy," retorted the old gentleman. "Your
grandfather, to whom you were once so considerate as to refer in
my presence as a pig, left you no legacy. He directed that as long
as you seemed to deserve it I should spend a certain sum on your
maintenance and education."
"Gad!" I cried. "That puts me in a nice position!"
The old lawyer looked at me whimsically.
"My gay young man," he remarked finally, "the only position you
occupy is one into which you have deliberately walked yourself.
You come here in your fine clothes and your beaver hat and--excuse
me--your whiskers, and you are surprised that there is no money
forthcoming to pay your debts. Do not look astonished. I know
and have known for a long time of your debts. I have followed your
career with attention if not with edification. Even for the son
of a Baptist minister you have done pretty well. However, life is
life and everybody is not the same. I sha'n't judge you. I was
a bit of a dog myself, although I don't look it now. But I can
give you no more money for game-cocks and cigars. It is time for
you to start in and earn your own living--if you can. At the end
of the term I will give you fifty dollars and a ticket to New York,
or one hundred dollars and no ticket to anywhere. You will have
to kick out for yourself. So fine a fellow," he added, "ought not
to find it hard to get along. No doubt you could find some rich
girl to marry you and support you in idleness."
I flushed with anger and sprang to my feet.
"I did not come here to be insulted!" I cried furiously.
Old Mr. Toddleham chuckled apologetically.
"Tut, tut! No offence. You won't find earning your living such
an easy matter. Have you thought anything about what you'll do?"
"No," I answered, still indignant.
"How much do you owe?"
"About forty-eight hundred dollars."
"Damme!" muttered Mr. Tuckerman Toddleham. "More than you could
earn in the first five years at the law!"
"See here," I interrupted, "do you seriously mean that except for
fifty dollars or so there is nothing coming to me out of my
grandfather's estate? Why, he was worth over a million!"
"That is exactly what I mean," he returned. "He left you nothing
except an allowance for your education during your good behavior.
He made me the judge. I'm your trustee and I can't conscientiously
let you have any more money to drink up and gamble with. It's over
and done with." He rapped with an air of finality on his desk with
the little bronze horse.
"Who gets all the money?" I asked ruefully.
"The Society for the Propagation of Free Thinking," he answered,
eyeing me sharply.
"I should think anything like that ought to be contrary to law!"
I retorted. "It ought to be a crime to encourage atheism."
"It's a good devise under our statutes!" he answered dryly. "I
suppose your own faith is beautiful enough, eh?"
I did not respond, but sat twisting my hat in my hands. Through
the open window the soft damp odors of spring came in and mingled
with the dusty smell of law books. So this was law! It suddenly
struck me that I was taking the loss of over a million dollars very
resignedly. How did I know whether the old boy was telling me the
truth or not? He had drawn the will and got a good fee for it.
Certainly he was not going to admit that there was anything invalid
about it. Why not study law--I might as well do that as anything
--and find out for myself? It was a game worth playing. The stakes
were a million dollars and the forfeit nothing. As I looked around
the little office and at the weazened old barrister before me,
something of the fascination of the law took hold of me.
"I rather think I should like to study law myself," I remarked.
He looked at me out of the corners of his bead-like little eyes.
"And break your gran'ther's will, mebbe?" he inquired slyly.
"If I can," I retorted defiantly.
"That would be better than fighting cocks and frittering your time
away with play actors," said he.
"Mr. Toddleham," I returned, "if I will agree to turn over a new
leaf and give up my present associates, will you continue my
allowance and let me stay on in Cambridge and study law?"
"If you will agree to enter my office and study under my supervision
--yes."
Once more I glanced around the little room. Somehow the smell of
decaying leather did not have the same fascination that it had
exercised a few moments before. The setting sun sinking over the
Probate Office entered the window and lingered on the stern old
face of the Hon. Jeremiah Mason over the fireplace. The birds
twittered gayly amid the branches by the window. Spring called me
to the open air, to the world outside, to the future.
"Give me fifty dollars and my ticket to New York," said I.
It had so happened that at the time of my visit to Mr. Toddleham
my credit, and consequently my ready funds, had become so reduced
that I had only a dollar or two in my pocket. Therefore the check
for fifty dollars that the old gentleman had carefully drawn for
me with his quill pen and then had as carefully sanded over was by
no means inopportune. I took the shore-car back over the Warren
Avenue Bridge, depressed at the thought of leaving the scene of my
first acquaintance with the world and at the same time somewhat
relieved, in spite of myself, by the consoling thought that I should
no longer be worried by the omnipresent anxiety of trying to escape
from duns and Jews.
Resolved to terminate my collegiate career in a blaze of glory, I
went the rounds of the college buildings and bade all my friends
to a grand celebration at the Tavern, where, owing to the large
amount of trade that I had been able to swing to it, my credit was
still good. Even "Buck" de Vries was not forgotten, and without
a suggestion of my contemplated departure I entertained my colleagues
royally with a bowl of punch brewed after a celebrated Cambridge
recipe, which in a decadent age spoke eloquently of the glories of
the past. I was in the midst of a highly colored speech--during
which I must confess de Vries had eyed me in a somewhat saturnine
manner--when the proprietor tapped me on the shoulder and said that
I was wanted outside. Excusing myself I stepped to the door only
to be unexpectedly confronted by the local sheriff, who apologetically
informed me that he held a warrant of attachment for my worldly
goods and another for the arrest of my very worldly person. With
admirable presence of mind I requested his patience until I should
find my coat, and returning via the buttery made my escape from
the premises by means of the rear exit. _Sic gloria transit!_
That night I slept under the roof of the amiable Quirk in Methuen,
and the day after reached New York, the city of my future career.