I am free to confess that the ease with which Counsellor Gottlieb
had deprived my friend Toby of the ill-gotten proceeds of his check
--or, for his sake putting it more politely, had earned his fee--
was the chief and inducing cause that led me to adopt the law as
a career. I shall not pretend that I had any lofty aims or ambitions,
felt any regard for its dignity or fascination for the mysteries
of its science when I selected it for my profession. My objects
were practical--my ambition to get the largest financial return
consonant with the least amount of work. My one concrete experience
of the law had opened my eyes to its possibilities in a way that
I had never dreamed of, and I resolved to lose no time in placing
myself in a position to rescue others from harm on the same pecuniary
basis as did Mr. Gottlieb.
Of course I realized that I must serve an apprenticeship, and indeed
the law required that were I not a graduate of a law school that
I must have worked as a clerk for two years before I could be
admitted to the bar. Accordingly I began to make inquiries as to
what were the best law firms in the city, and before long had
acquired pretty definite information as to who were and who were
not in high standing. Now, I had no letters of introduction and
nothing to recommend me except a certain degree of maturity and a
cultivated manner of speaking, and I might and probably should have
been trying to this day to break into some sedate and high-toned
old-fogy office had it not been for one of those accidents with
which my career has been replete.
I had visited all the firms on my list without finding any who
wanted to take in a student. Indeed all the offices seemed filled
if not crowded with studious-looking young men whose noses were
buried in law books. In one or two, to be sure, I might have
secured admittance and been given desk room in exchange for the
services of my legs as a runner of errands and a server of papers,
but none had any idea of paying anything. The profession at the
bottom was more overcrowded than the gallery of the Academy of
Music when they ran Rosedale. Each night as I returned to my
lodgings I felt more and more discouraged. Its smell of cabbage
came to have for me an inexpressible sensation of relief, of
protection, even of luxury. Here, at any rate, even in an actors'
boarding-house, I was independent, as good as anybody, and not
regarded as if I were a beggar on the one hand or a questionable
character on the other.
How long this might have continued I have no means of knowing, but
one afternoon as I was trudging uptown, still holding in my hand
a copy of a legal journal, the advertisements in which I had been
engaged in sedulously running down, my attention was attracted by
a crowd gathered in the street around a young man who had been so
unfortunate as to be run over by a stage. There was nothing external
to indicate the extent of his injuries, and as I drew nearer two
persons assisted him to his feet and began to lead him toward the
nearest store. Having nothing better to do I walked along with
them, and after they had gone inside remained looking curiously
through the window. While I was thus engaged a stout, bustling
man of about forty years of age came hurrying down the sidewalk
and turned to enter the store. As he did he observed me apparently
waiting there and his eye with a quick glance took in the title of
the paper in my hand. Instantly he stepped up beside me and tapping
me on the arm said in a low tone:
"Whom do you represent?"
I was somewhat taken aback by this inquiry, not seeing at the moment
its immediate relation to the business at hand, but for want of a
better answer I replied in the same spirit:
"Artemas Quibble."
"Oh! Quibble, eh! I've heard of him. But look here, my young
friend, there is no reason why honest men should cut one another's
throats. Tell my friend Quibble I was here before ye and keep this
for yourself."
And with that he peeled a twenty-dollar bill from the top of a
heavy roll that he produced from his pocket and placed it within
my palm.
"Very good," said I. "It may cost me dear if Quibble hears of it,
but a man must live, and I work at starvation wages."
I placed the bill in my breast pocket and made way for him to enter
the store, which he did without more ado. Why this busy gentleman
should gratuitously present me with twenty dollars did not at the
moment occur to me. I continued on my way northward, pondering
upon the question, and passed the street upon which the police
court was located and Counsellor Gottlieb had his office. The
thought came into my mind that here was the very person to shed
light upon the subject and I turned the corner and opened the door.
Gottlieb was in his customary position with his feet elevated upon
the table before him.
"Well," he said, "I didn't expect you back so soon."
"I've come for free advice this time," I answered.
"Oh," he grunted. "Well, in that case perhaps you won't get it."
Somehow I had taken a shine 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-
fashioned 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 hogwash! 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 willy-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
asset, 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 Massachusetts 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 Shelley's Case--what do you think of it? What _was_
the Rule in Shelley'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 associates 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 assistance, 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
assist 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 assistance, 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 circumstances 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 document 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.
...................................(*)
...................................(*)
======================================================================
Armed with these insinuating documents I procured a fresh roll of
one hundred one-dollar bills and set forth to interview all whose
acquaintance I had made in the course of my brief residence in the
city. My argument ran thus: Almost anybody would be willing to
receive a dollar every month in return for a service that would
cost him nothing. With an outlay of one hundred dollars I could
have a hundred persons virtually in my employ trying to get me
business. After the first month I could discontinue with those
who seemed likely to prove unremunerative. Almost any case would
return in fees as much as my original disbursement. On the whole
it seemed a pretty safe investment and the formal-looking contract
would tend to increase the sense of obligation upon the contracting
party of the first part. Nor did my forecast of the probabilities
prove at all wide of the mark. Practically every one to whom I
put the proposition readily accepted my dollar and signed the
agreement, and at the end of a week my one hundred dollars had been
distributed among all the cab drivers, conductors, waiters, elevator
men, clerks, bartenders, actors, hall boys, and storekeepers that
I knew or with whom I could scrape an acquaintance. None of them
expected to have any business of their own and all welcomed with
delight the idea of profiting by the misfortunes of their friends.
I had often lost or won at a single sitting at cards a much larger
sum than the one I was now risking in what seemed an excellent
business proposition, so that the money involved caused me no
uneasiness. Besides, I had fifty dollars left in my pocket.
Meantime I spent my evening in my office reading Blackstone and
such text-books as I cared to borrow from the well-equipped library
of my employers.
Business came, however, with unexpected promptitude. At the end
of the first week I had received calls from two actors who desired
to sue their managers for damages for breach of contract, five
waiters who wished to bring actions for wages due, and actress who
wanted a separation from her husband, a bartender who was charged
with assault for knocking the teeth of an unruly customer down his
throat, and a boy whose leg had been caught under an elevator and
crushed. Each of these I made sign an agreement that I should
receive half of any sum recovered in consideration of seeing that
they received proper legal advice and service, and each of them I
sent over to Counsellor Gottlieb, with whom I executed a mutual
contract to divide evenly the fees received.
The reader will notice that I did not technically hold myself out
as a lawyer in these contracts, and merely agreed to furnish counsel.
Thus I flattered myself I was keeping on the lee side of the law.
Gottlieb settled the case of the boy for twelve hundred dollars,
and we divided six hundred between us, and the other cases that
came in the first month netted us three hundred dollars apiece
more. The future began to look bright enough, as I had to distribute
as commissions only two hundred dollars, which left me a gross
profit of four hundred dollars. With this I secured fifty new
contracts, and after paying the second installments upon all the
first I pocketed as a net result two hundred and fifty dollars
cash. I now had a growing business at my back, finding it necessary
to employ an office assistant, and accordingly selected for that
purpose an old actor who was no longer able to walk the boards,
but who still retained the ability to speak his part. For a weekly
wage of ten dollars this elderly gentleman agreed to sit in my
office and hold forth upon my ability, shrewdness, and learning to
all such as called in my absence. In the afternoons I assumed
charge myself and sent him forth armed with contracts to secure
new allies.
My business soon increased to such an extent that it bid fair to
take up all my time, and the bookkeeping end of it, with its
complicated division of receipts, proved not a little difficult.
The amazement of my friend Gottlieb knew no bounds, but as it was
a profitable arrangement for him he asked no questions and remained
in ignorance as to the source of my stream of clients, until one
of his friends, to whom my assistant had made application, showed
him one of the contracts. That night he sent for me to come to
his office, and after offering me a very large and exceedingly good
Havana cigar delivered himself as follows:
"Harkee, Quib, you are more of a fellow than I took you for. You
have more cleverness than any man of your years in my acquaintance
at the bar. This scheme of yours, now, it's a veritable gold mine.
Not but that anybody could make use of it. It can't be patented,
you know. But it's excellently devised; no one will deny that.
What do you say to a partnership, eh? On the same terms?"
Now, I had more than once thought of the same thing myself, but
the idea of associating myself in business with an out-and-out
criminal attorney had to my mind serious drawbacks. We discussed
the matter at length, however, and Gottlieb pointed out very wisely
that I was running a great risk in distributing broadcast cards
upon which appeared the unauthorized name of Haight & Foster, as
well as in conducting an office under my own name, when in fact I
was but an attorney's clerk downtown. My connection and association
with such a reputable firm was an asset not to be jeopardized
lightly, and he advised my withdrawing so far as I could all my
cards from circulation and conducting my business _sub rosa_. In
the end we came to an understanding which we reduced to writing.
I was to become a silent partner in Gottlieb's business and my
office was to become a branch of his, my own name being entirely
in abeyance. On the whole, this arrangement pleased me very well,
as under it I ran practically no risk of having my activities
discovered by my employers.
It is somewhat difficult to know just in what order to present
these memoirs to the reader, for from this time on my life became
a very varied one. Had I the time I should like nothing better
than to paint for my own satisfaction an old-fashioned law office
as it was conducted in the 'seventies--its insistent note of
established respectability, the suppressed voices of its young men,
their obvious politeness to each other and defence to clients,
their horror at anything vulgar, the quiet, the irritating quiet,
Mr. Wigger's red wig--he was the engrossing clerk--the lifelessness
of the atmosphere of the place, as if nothing real ever happened
there, and as if the cases we prepared and tried were of interest
only on account of the legal points involved. When I was there,
filing papers in their dusty packages, I used to feel as though I
was fumbling among the dust of clients long since dead and gone.
The place stifled and depressed me. I longed for red blood and
real life. There I was, acting as a clerk on nothing a year, when
uptown I was in the centre of the whirlpool of existence. It was
with ill-concealed gratification that I used daily at one o'clock
to enter the library, bow to whatever member of the firm happened
to be there, remove a book from the shelves and slip out of the
door. A horse-car dropped me in half an hour at a hotel near my
office. After I had snatched a sandwich and a cup of coffee in
the café I would dash up to my office--the door of which now bore
the lettering:
ABRAHAM GOTTLIEB
ATTORNEY & COUNSELLOR-AT-LAW
BRANCH OFFICE
SIDDONS KELLY, MANAGER
Siddons Kelly was the superannuated actor of whom I have already
spoken, and when he was not, so to speak, in drink he was an
invaluable person. He had followed the stage all his life, but he
was of the sort that tear passion to tatters and he had never risen
above third-rate parts. In every respect save declamation he had
all the elegances and charm of manner that the stage can give, and
he would receive and bow out a scrubwoman who had fallen down a
flight of back stairs and wanted to make the landlord pay for her
broken head with a grace truly Chesterfieldian. This was all very
fine until he had taken a drop too much, when his vocabulary would
swell to such dimensions that the confused and embarrassed client
would flee in self-protection unless fortunate enough to be rescued
by Gottlieb or myself. Poor Kelly! He was a fine old type. And
many a client then and later was attracted to my office by his
refined and intellectual old face with its locks of silky gray.
An old bachelor, he died alone one night in his little boarding-
house with a peaceful smile on his wrinkled face. He lies in
Greenwood Cemetery. Over him is a simple stone--for which I paid
--bearing, as he had requested, only the words:
SIDDONS KELLEY
AN ACTOR
As may well be supposed, my professional career uptown was vastly
more entertaining than my experiences at Haight & Foster's. My
afternoons were filled with a constant procession of clients of
all ages, sexes, colors, and conditions. As the business grew and
greater numbers of persons signed our contracts and received their
honorarium of a dollar a month, a constantly increasing percentage
of criminal or semi-criminal cases came to the office. Of course
there was no better criminal lawyer than Gottlieb in the city, and
before long the criminals outnumbered our civil clients. At the
same time I noticed a tendency on the part of the civil business
to fall off, the reason for this probably being that my partner
was known only as a criminal attorney. Now, I began to dislike
the idea of paying a dollar a month to induce people to refer
business to us, and indeed I found that the disbursement of five
or six hundred dollars every four weeks for this purpose was no
trifling matter. Accordingly I decided to try letting them go for
a month or so, but business fell off to such an alarming extent
that I almost immediately resumed the contract system, merely
reducing its proportions.
In addition to our "dollar-a-monthers," as we called them, Gottlieb
employed half a dozen professional "runners," whose sole occupation
it was to hunt down unfortunate persons injured accidentally and
secure their cases. These employees made a business of joining as
many social clubs, labor and other organizations as possible and
swinging the business in Gottlieb's direction. At one time the
competition for accident cases became so fierce that if a man were
run over on Broadway the rival runners would almost tear him limb
from limb in their eagerness to get his case; and they would follow
a dying man to the hospital and force their way on one pretext or
another to his bedside. There used to be a story, which went the
rounds of the clubs and barrooms, of a very swell old buck who owed
an enormous amount of money and who happened to be knocked down
and rendered insensible by a butcher's wagon. He was taken to the
hospital and did not regain consciousness for several hours. When
at last he opened his eyes he saw several dozen cards plastered
upon the ceiling directly over his head, reading:
GO TO
LEVY & FINKLESTEIN
ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW
WE GET YOU MONEY!
TRY
EINSTEIN & GOLDBERG
IN THE BUSINESS 30 YEARS
SOLOMONS & MEYER
ATTORNEYS
CAN GET YOU
$5000 FOR A LEG
$10,000 FOR A LIVER
MOSES BLOOM
THE HONEST LAWYER
SAMUEL SHARP
COUNSELLOR-AT-LAW
"Ah!" he murmured, rubbing his eyes and turning to the nurse; "I
thought I was in some strange place, but I see that all my friends
have been to call already!"
Our criminal business, however, was so extensive that it took
practically all of Gottlieb's time, and he found it necessary to
hire a couple of clerks to attend to the civil cases that came to
us. My partner was obliged to spend the whole of almost every day
in attendance at the criminal courts. Frequently he remarked
jestingly that under the circumstances, as he had to give all his
time to it anyway, he could as easily attend to _all_ the criminal
business of the city as to the small part of it that came to him.
"Well," I said to him one day, "why don't you?"
"Why don't I what?" he retorted.
"Get all the criminal business there is," I answered.
"Quib," he exclaimed excitedly, "have you got another of your
ideas?"
"I think so," I returned. "How does this strike you? Why not
issue a policy, like life or accident insurance, in which for a
moderate sum you agree to defend _free of charge_ any man accused
of crime? You know that every criminal is always trying to save
up money against the time when he shall be caught and have to hire
a lawyer. Now, it is true that these fellows pay very well, but
there are not many that can pay a large fee. If you could get
enough crooks to take out a policy at ten dollars per year you
might make a good thing of it."
"But how would we get our scheme going?" inquired my partner, with
a gleam in his eye. "It certainly is a gold mine, if it will work."
"Leave the thing to me," I admonished him.
That evening I drew up with great care a policy of insurance against
the loss occasioned by having to employ counsel if arrested for
crime. On its back was indorsed the following insidious philosophy:
"Innocent men, as well as guilty, are frequently arrested for
violating the law. This costs money. Lawyers are notorious
extortioners. For ten dollars a year we guarantee to defend you
_for nothing_ if charged with crime. Twenty-five dollars insures
entire family. We make no distinction between ex-convicts and
others.
"ABRAHAM GOTTLIEB,
"Of Counsel."
My next task was to boom my scheme by successful advertising, and
with this in view I persuaded Gottlieb to issue free policies to
a dozen or so of the worst rascals that he knew. Naturally it was
not long before one of them was arrested for some offence, and
Gottlieb as naturally succeeded in getting him off, with the natural
result that the fellow went all over town telling how one could be
a burglar with impunity for ten dollars a year. At about the same
time I heard of a man who was in the Tombs charged with murder,
but who was almost certain to get off on account of the weakness
of the case against him. I, therefore, visited the defendant and
offered to give him a policy for ten dollars, in spite of the fact
that he was already in jail. He snatched readily enough at the
chance of getting as good a lawyer as Gottlieb to defend him for
ten dollars, and when he was acquitted made so much of it that
there was hardly a prisoner in the Tombs who did not send for one
of our policies to guard against future legal difficulties. To
all of these we offered free advice and a free trial upon the
charges pending against them, as a sort of premium or inducement
to become policy-holders, and in six months had over two hundred
subscribers. This meant in cash about two thousand dollars, but
it necessitated defending any or all of them whenever they were so
unfortunate as to run foul of the police, and as luck would have
it out of the two hundred policy-holders forty-seven of them were
arrested within the first six months--fifteen for burglary, eleven
for robbery and assault, sixteen for theft, and five for murder.
These latter cases took all of Gottlieb's working hours for some
seven and a half weeks, at the end of which time he threw up his
hands and vowed never to insure anybody against anything again.
It was impossible for me to try any of the cases myself, as I was
not as yet admitted to the bar, and the end of the matter was that
we returned the premiums and cancelled the policies of the remaining
one hundred and fifty-three insured. This done, Gottlieb and I
heaved sighs of mutual relief.
"You are a clever fellow, Quib," he acknowledged good-naturedly,
"but in some ways you are ahead of your time. You ought to have
gone into life insurance or railroading. Your genius is wasted on
anything that ain't done wholesale. Let's you and me just stick
to such clients as come our way in the natural course of events.
There isn't any one born yet big enough to do all the criminal law
business in this little old town by himself."
And in this I with some regret agreed with him.