Oh! take away my wig and gown,
Their sight is mock’ry now to me:
I pace my chambers up and down,
Reiterating “Where is _he_?”
Alas! wild echo, with a moan,
Murmurs above my fever’d head:
In the wide world I am alone;
Ha! ha! my only client’s--dead.
In vain the robing room I seek;
The very waiters scarcely bow;
Their looks contemptuously speak,
“He’s lost his only client now.”
E’en the mild usher, who of yore,
Would hasten when his name I said,
To hand in motions, comes no more,
_He_ knows my only client’s dead.
Ne’er shall I, rising up in court,
Open the pleadings of a suit:
Ne’er shall the judges cut me short,
While moving them for a compute.
No more with a consenting brief
Shall I politely bow my head;
Where shall I run to hide my grief?
Alas! my only client’s dead.
Imagination’s magic power
Brings back, as clear as clear can be,
The spot, the day, the very hour,
When first I sign’d my maiden plea.
In the Exchequer’s hindmost row,
I sat, and some one touch’d my head,
He tendered ten-and-six, but oh!
That only client now is dead.
In vain, I try to sing--I’m hoarse:
In vain I try to play the flute,
A phantom seems to flit across,--
It is the ghost of a compute.
I try to read--but all in vain;
My chambers listlessly I tread;
Be still, my heart; throb less, my brain;
Ho! ho! my only client’s dead.
I think I hear a double knock;
I did--alas! it is a dun.
Tailor--avaunt! my sense you shock;
He’s dead! you know I had but one!
What’s this they thrust into my hand?
A bill returned!--ten pounds for bread!
My butcher got a large demand;
I’m mad! my only client’s dead.
* * * * *
[Illustration: CHAMBER PRACTICE.--_Messenger (from studious party in
the floor below)._ “If you please, sir, master’s compliments, and he
says he’d be much obliged if you’d let him know when the repairs will
be finished, for the knocking do disturb him so!”]
* * * * *
REFORM YOUR LAWYERS’ BILLS.--There is one consolidation of the statutes
that would be very useful--to make them so solid that no lawyer could
drive a coach-and-six through them.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _First Litigant._ “I’m bankruptcy. What are you?”
_Second L._ “I’m divorce.”
_First L._ “Then you stand lunch!”]
* * * * *