"I will endeavor to throw you something from time to time," said the prosperous lawyer, for it made him feel his own success to see such a poor young man and it tickled his vitals into benignity.
The country boy sold all his possessions for a few hundred dollars and came to New York. His friend was very kind in his manner and prolific of advice, but, unfortunately, he had no room in his own office for a junior or even an errand-boy. So Peters, for that was the young man's name, dragged himself up and down the city trying to find an opening, no matter how small. He was too old to begin as a clerk and too much of a bumpkin for anything else, and he found that nobody had any use for a young man of his particular type and training. At last, in despair, he hired desk-room in an office, shared jointly by half a dozen young men like himself, and waited for something to turn up; but nothing came. His bank account fell lower and lower, and he became more and more shabby. Moreover, he was eating his heart out with disappointment, for he could not return to his native town and confess himself a failure.
From time to time he would drop into his prosperous friend's offices, but the latter never had anything to turn over to him and he would return dejectedly to his own solitary desk. At last he was forced to give up lunch and get along as best he could on two scanty meals a day; he grew thin and haggard, his Adam's apple projected redly above a frayed collar, his trousers grew wrinkled and shiny, and he looked ready to take his place in the "bread line." Finally he spent his last cent on a pretzel and made ready to "turn in his checks."
At this point Peters paid a last visit to his friend, who was visibly shocked at his emaciated appearance, for his eyes burned with the fever of starvation and his jaw was set in a pitiful determination to keep going until he dropped.
"Mr. Banks," said he grimly, "unless you give me something to doI'll go under. The fact is, I'm starving!"
Mr. Banks look at him critically.
"Pretty near ready to give up, eh?" he remarked. "Better chuck it and go back! I guess I was wrong when I told you to come down here."
"Not yet," answered Peters doggedly. "When I go back it'll be in a wooden box."
"Well," replied Mr. Banks, "I'm sorry; but there isn't a thing in the office I can give you." He pondered a minute. "I've got a lot of old judgments against a fellow named Rosenheim—in the cigar business, but he's no good—judgment proof—and they aren't worth the paper they're written on."
"Give them to me!" almost shouted Peters.
Mr. Banks laughed.
"You can have ninety per cent. of all you collect," said he as he bent over and, pulling out a lower drawer, removed a bundle of soiled documents. "Here they are. My blessing to you!"
Peters grabbed the transcripts and staggered down the stairs. It took him less than ten minutes to find Mr. Simon Rosenheim, who was sitting inside a brass fence at a mahogany desk, smoking one of the best of his own cigars.
"Mr. Rosenheim," said Peters, "I have some judgments here against you, amounting to about three thousand dollars."
"Yes?" remarked Rosenheim politely.
"Can you let me have the money?" inquired Peters.
"My dear fellow," retorted Rosenheim, with an oily sneer, "I owe the money all right, but I don't own a thing in the world. Everything in this room belongs to my wife. The amount of money I owe is really something shocking. Even what is in the safe"—he nodded to a large affair on the other side of the room—"belongs to somebody else."
Rosenheim had been through this same performance hundreds of times before, but not with the same dénouement.
Suddenly he saw a lean young man, with hollow cheeks and blazing eyes, leap over the brass railing. In another instant horny hands grasped him firmly by the windpipe and a voice hissed in his ear:
"Pay me those judgments or I'll strangle you here and now!"
With bursting veins and protruding tongue he struggled helplessly to escape as his assailant dragged him toward the safe.
"I mean what I say!" half shrieked Peters. "I'm starving! I'd as lief die one way as another; but before I die you'll pay up those judgments—every cent!"
Rosenheim was on his knees now before the safe, his eyes starting from his head.
"Open the safe!" commanded Peters.
Rosenheim, the sweat of death on his brow, fumbled with the combination; the tumbler caught, the door swung open. Peters lifted his captive enough to permit him to reach in and take out the bills.
"Count 'em out!" he ordered.
Rosenheim did as he was told, shaking with fear. Peters stuffed the money into his pocket.
"Now do your damdest!" he shouted. "I've had one piece of law business before I died. Good afternoon!"
Rosenheim crawled back to his desk, relit his cigar and endeavored to pull himself together. He had a half-scared, half-puzzled look on his face and once in awhile he scratched his head.
Meantime Peters repaired to the nearest hotel and ordered a dinner of steak and fried potatoes, washed down with a pint of champagne. He then purchased a new suit of clothes, a box of collars, a few shirts, and a hat. When he entered Mr. Banks' office an hour later the latter with difficulty recognized his visitor.
"I owe you three hundred dollars, I believe," remarked Peters, laying down the bills.
"Owe—me—What? You didn't get that money out of Rosenheim?" stammered Banks.
"Why not?" asked Peters casually. "Of course I did. Every cent of it."
Banks looked at him in utter amazement. He, too, scratched his head.
"Say," he suddenly exploded, "you must be quite a feller! Now, look here, I've got a claim against the Pennsylvania and Susquehanna Terminal Company for two million dollars that I wish you'd come in and give me a little help on. What do you say?"
Peters hesitated and pursed his lips.
"Oh, I don't mind if I do," said he carelessly.
You may have heard of the celebrated law firm of Banks & Peters— who do a business of about four hundred thousand a year? Well, that is Peters. Banks says he's "the ablest young lawyer in New York."
Peters, however, does not deserve the same credit as another young fellow of my acquaintance, since in Peters' case necessity was the parent of his invention; whereas in the other the scheme that led to success was the offspring of an ingenuity that needed no starvation to stimulate it into activity.
Baldwin was a youth of about thirty, who had done pretty well at the bar without giving any evidence of brilliancy and only moderate financial success. He perceived the obvious fact that the way to make money at the law is to have money-makers for clients, but he had no acquaintances with financiers and had no reason to advance to himself why he should ever hope to receive any business from such. Reading one day that a certain young attorney he knew had received a large retainer for bringing an injunction in an important railroad matter, it occurred to him that, after all, it was merely chance and nothing else that had sent the business to the other instead of to himself. "If I'd only known Morgan H. Rogers I might have had the job myself," thought he.
So he pondered deeply over how he could get to know Mr. Morgan H. Rogers and at last conceived the idea of pretending that he had a client who—without disclosing his name for the time being— desired to create a trust for the benefit of a charity in which the railroad magnate was much interested. With this excuse he found no difficulty in securing an interview and making an agreeable impression. The next step was more difficult.
Finally, having learned through a clerk in the banker's office with whom he had cultivated an acquaintance that Mr. Morgan H. Rogers was going to Boston at a certain hour that very afternoon, he donned his best funeral suit and boarded the same train himself. As he passed through the drawing-room car he bowed to the great man, who returned his greeting with the shortness characteristic of him, and passed on to the smoker, where he ensconced himself in a chair near the door, depositing on the seat next to him a pile of magazines and his coat. Half an hour passed and the car filled up, save for the seat next the young lawyer. Presently the bulky form of Morgan H. Rogers filled the door-way. He already had a black unlit cigar in his mouth and he scanned the rows of seats with ill-concealed disappointment. Then his eye caught the one occupied by our friend's coat.
"Let me have this seat!" said he abruptly.
"Oh, how are you, Mr. Rogers!" exclaimed the young lawyer."Certainly! Let me give you a light."
"Your name's Baldwin, isn't it?" inquired the banker as he took up a magazine. "Saw you about that trust matter last week, didn't I?"
"Yes," answered Baldwin. "Nothing has occurred in connection with it since then."
And he returned to his paper without paying any further attention to his companion. At Bridgeport a telegraph boy rushed into the car and yelled: "Baldwin! Mr. Baldwin!"
Mr. Baldwin held out his hand, in which lay half a dollar, and without much apparent interest opened the envelope and scanned its contents.
"H'm!" he remarked, half inwardly, and thrust the paper into his pocket.
At New Haven another boy boarded the train, calling anxiously for Everitt P. Baldwin—this time there were two telegrams; and just as the train pulled out a third arrived.
Mr. Baldwin read them all with the keenest interest and could hardly conceal an exclamation of satisfaction; but the magnate gave no sign. At New London there was another flurry and, in spite of himself, Mr. Baldwin slapped his knee and muttered: "Good enough!"
As the train started again Morgan H. Rogers let fall his magazine and growled half-facetiously:
"What the devil are all those telegrams about?"
"Just a little injunction suit," the young man answered modestly, "in which my firm has been quite successful." And, without giving any names—for, indeed, there were none—he sketched rapidly a hypothetical situation of the greatest legal delicacy, in which he had tied up an imaginary railroad system with an injunction, supposedly just made permanent. Morgan H. Rogers became interested and offered Mr. Baldwin a remarkably big cigar. He had been having a few troubles of his own of a similar character. In a few moments the two were deep in the problems of one of the financier's own transcontinental lines and a week later Baldwin was on Rogers' regular staff of railroad attorneys.
It is pleasant to reflect upon such happy incidents in the history of a profession that probably offers more difficulties to the beginner than any other. Yet the very obstacles to success in it are apt to develop an intellectual agility and a flexibility of morals which, in the long run, may well lead not only to fortune, but to fame—of one sort or another. I recall an incident in my own career, upon my ingenuity in which, for a time, I looked back with considerable professional pride, until I found it a common practice among my elders and contemporaries of the criminal and even of the civil bar.
It so happened that I had an elderly client of such an exceedingly irascible disposition that he was always taking offence at imaginary insults and was ready to enter into litigation of the fiercest character at the slightest excuse. Now, though he was often in the right, he was nevertheless frequently in the wrong—and equally unreasonable in either case. He was turned over to me in despair by another and older attorney, who could do nothing with him and wished me joy in my undertaking. I soon found that the old gentleman's guiding principle was "Millions for defence, but not one cent for tribute." In other words, as he always believed himself to have been imposed upon, he litigated almost every bill that was presented to him, with the result that three times out of five judgment was given against him. He had himself studied for the bar and had a natural fondness for technicalities; and he was quite ready to pay handsomely any one he believed to be zealously guarding his interests.
He was, at the time I became acquainted with him, nearly seventy years of age and his chief diversion was to sit in my office and harangue me upon his grievances. Being a sort of sea-lawyer himself he was forever devising quaint defences and strange reasons why he should not pay his creditors; and he was ever ready to spend a hundred dollars in lawyers' fees in order to save fifty. This is the most desirable variety of client a lawyer can have.
One trifling weakness, common to mankind in general, gave him much encouragement; for he soon discovered that, rather than incur the trouble of hiring lawyers and going to court, his creditors would usually compound with him for considerably less than their just claims. This happened so frequently that he almost never paid a bill in the first instance, with the natural result that those who had sent him honest bills before, after one or two experiences with him, made it a practice to add thirty per cent. or so to the total, in order that they might later on gracefully reduce their demands without loss. Thus my client, by his peevishness, actually created the very condition regarding which, out of an overactive imagination, he had complained originally without just cause.
It so happened that the first matter in which he required my services was a dispute over a tailor's bill that he regarded as excessive. He had ordered a pair of trousers without inquiring the price and was shocked to discover that he had been charged three dollars more than for his last pair. The tailor explained at great length that the first had been summer weight and that these were winter weight; but to no purpose.
"You think you can take advantage of me because I'm an old man!" he shrieked in rage. "But you'll find out. Just wait until I see my lawyer!"
So down he came to my office and fumed and chattered for an hour or more about the extra three dollars on his trousers. If he had been less abusive the tailor might have overlooked the matter; but even a tailor has a soul, and this time the man swore to have the law on his cantankerous customer.
"Fight to the last ditch!" shouted the old man. "Don't yield an inch!"
A day or two later the tailor served my client, whose name was Wimbleton, with a summons and complaint; and I was forced to put in an answer, in which I took issue upon the reasonable value of the trousers. By the time I had drawn the papers and listened to my client's detailed history of the transaction, as well as his picturesque denunciation of his opponent, I had already put in about a hundred dollars' worth of my time without any prospect of a return. I knew that if the case were tried it would mean a day lost for myself and a judgment against my client. The old fellow had a large amount of property, however, and I was willing to take a loss if it meant future business. Yet the time involved and the trifling character of the suit annoyed me and I resolved to take it upon myself to settle the matter over my client's head.
On my way home I stopped in at the tailor's and told him to take his three dollars and discontinue his action, which he was glad enough to do. The next day I wrote Mr. Wimbleton that I had forced his enemy to capitulate—horse, foot, and dragoons—and that the suit had been withdrawn. My embarrassment may be imagined when my client arrived at the office in a state of delirious excitement and insisted not only on inviting me to dinner, but on paying me fifty dollars for services in giving him the satisfaction of beating the tailor. Instantly I saw a means of entirely satisfying the old man and earning some good fees without the slightest exertion.
The same method—although for another purpose—will be recalled by my readers as having been invoked by the unjust steward who called his lord's debtors to him and inquired how much they owed. One, if I remember correctly, said a hundred measures of oil.
"Take thy bill," said the steward, "and sit down quickly, and write fifty."
Another, who confessed to owing a hundred measures of wheat, the steward let off with eighty. On discovering what he had done his lord commended him for having done wisely, on the ground that the children of this world were wiser than the children of light.
Thus, it will be observed, my early Biblical training stood me in practical stead; and the only difference between the unjust steward and myself lay in the manner in which we were each eventually treated by our respective masters. Indeed, I found this Scriptural scheme so profitable and effective that soon my client swore I was the cleverest lawyer he had ever employed.
Some one would commence a suit against him for damages for breach of contract amounting to a couple of thousand dollars, where he thought he ought to pay only fifteen hundred, but where he really had no defense. I would file an elaborate answer setting up all sorts of defences, move for an examination of the plaintiff and of his books and papers, secure a bill of particulars and go through all sorts of legal hocus-pocus to show how bitterly I was contesting the case as a matter of principle. Before the action came to trial, however, I would settle it for one thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars, telling my client that we had brought the other side to his terms, and charge him seven hundred and fifty dollars for my services—thus netting five hundred dollars in fees.
Often, when the amount sued for was small—say, fifty or one hundred dollars—and where my client had absolutely declined to pay anything, I paid the claim in full, simply for the satisfaction of leading him to believe that he had been successful in resisting what he regarded as an unjust or excessive demand.
This went on for several years, until, quite by chance, one of his creditors, with whom I had settled over his head, either out of forgetfulness or an evil wish to do me a bad turn, wrote him a letter thanking him for his generosity. The next day he appeared, purple with rage, and for some unaccountable reason, instead of "commending" me, denounced me for a shyster. And this in spite of the undoubted fact that my pacific methods had probably saved him hundreds of dollars!
It was about this time that Gottlieb devised a truly brilliant scheme, which had to commend it the highly desirable quality of being absolutely safe.
There is a very wise provision of our law to the effect that, where a wife desires to bring an action against her husband for divorce and is without means for the purpose, the courts will allow her a counsel fee and alimonypendente lite. The counsel fee is to enable her to pay a lawyer and prepare for trial, and the amount usually varies from one hundred to one thousand dollars.
One morning my partner came grinning into my office and showed me a very soiled and wrinkled paper.
"What d'ye think of that?" he laughed.
The document, which turned out to be an affidavit executed inChicago, read as follows:
"STATE OF ILLINOIS )"COOK COUNTY, CITY OF CHICAGO ) ss.
"LIZZIE YARNOWSKI, being duly sworn, deposes and says that she is over twenty-one years of age and engaged in the employment of making artificial flowers; that in the year 1881 the defendant induced her to leave her home in New York and journey with him in the West under a promise of marriage, representing himself to be a traveling salesman employed by a manufacturer of soda fountains; that they were married on July 5, 1881, in the town of Piqua, Ohio, by a justice of the peace under the names of Sadie Bings and Joshua Blank, and by a rabbi in Chicago on August 17, 1881; that two weeks thereafter defendant deserted plaintiff and has never since contributed toward her support, and that she has since learned that the defendant is a banker and a broker, doing business on Wall Street in the city of New York."
The affidavit then went on to state that the defendant had given the plaintiff good grounds for seeking for a divorce and that she was without means to engage counsel or prepare for trial. The contents of the paper was skilfully worded so as to convey the impression that the deponent was a woman of somewhat doubtful character herself, but that on the other hand she had been tricked by the defendant into a secret—and what he intended to be a temporary—marriage. Attached thereto was another affidavit from the justice of the peace to the effect that on the date in question he had united in the holy bonds of matrimony a man and a woman who had given the names of Sadie Bings and Joshua Blank.
"Well, Gottlieb," said I, "this is interesting reading, whether it be fact or fiction; but what is its significance to us?"
"Why," answered my associate, "these are the papers I propose to use on a motion for counsel fee and alimony in a divorce action brought against Mr. Chester Gates, a broker downtown—and, I may add, a very rich and respectable young gentleman. Of course, I have no personal knowledge of the matter, as the case has been sent to us by one of our legal friends in Chicago; but I am quite sure that the court will grant me a counsel fee in order to enable the poor woman to prepare her case and bring it to trial."
"But," I replied, "we have made just such applications a thousand times before, have we not?"
Gottlieb gave me one of his long, slow winks.
"Not just like this," said he, and went back into his room, whileI pondered on what I had read.
A few days later Gottlieb served the complaint in an action for absolute divorce upon Mr. Chester Gates, to the young man's great indignation and annoyance; and shortly thereafter a very respectable and prosperous old family lawyer called upon us to explain that the whole matter was a mistake and that his client had never, never been married, and knew no Miss Lizzie Yarnowski, either as Sadie Bings or under any other name.
Gottlieb and I treated him with the greatest deference, explaining that we had no option but to go on with the matter, as we were only acting for our Chicago correspondent. At this the old lawyer grew very indignant and muttered something under his breath about perjury and blackmail, to which, however, neither Gottlieb nor I paid any attention. A week or so later we made our motion for alimony and counsel feependente lite, and in spite of the vehement affidavit of Chester Gates, Esquire, that he had never seen or heard of the plaintiff nor been married to anybody in his life, the court granted us two hundred and fifty dollars as counsel fee.
This was made payable at our office, as the attorneys for plaintiff; and a day or two later Mr. Gates himself called and asked to see us. He was a rosy-cheeked, athletic young fellow, who could, I fancy, have knocked both our heads together had he chosen to do so.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen," said he, closing the door and seating himself at Gottlieb's invitation. This is a very interesting experience you are putting me through. I am made the defendant in a divorce action and ordered to pay you two hundred and fifty dollars on affidavits that I know are perjured from start to finish. Well, if that's law I have nothing to say. Of course, you can't win your case, because you can't prove that I ever married anybody —which latter fact, of course, you very well know. I would never pay you a cent to settle this or any other unfounded suit, and I never did anything for which you or any other scoun—beg pardon, I mean lawyer—could blackmail me. But this is a new one on me. You have got a court order that I am to pay you two hundred and fifty dollars to bring a bogus action against myself. Well, here's my check for it. I congratulate you. Now, I'm amused to see what you're going to do next. I want to get something for my money."
Gottlieb took the check and rang a bell for the office boy.
"Take this over to the bank and cash it," he directed. "That's the first thing I'm going to do," turning to Gates. "The next is this." He opened the top drawer of his desk and took out a legal paper. "Here," said he, "is a discontinuance of the action, which I received this morning from Chicago. I suppose you have no objection to having the matter disposed of in that way? You'll take it?"
Mr. Gates looked at him for a moment and then burst out laughing.
"By George!" he exclaimed. "Take it? Of course I'll take it. I have no particular desire to go on with the litigation, I assure you. I fully expected to be adjudged the father of a large family of little Yarnowskis. But, now that the matter is settled, would you mind telling me who the lady really is?"
Gottlieb looked at him very solemnly and, to my horror, gave an imperceptible wink.
"All I can tell you, sir," he replied, "is that her name is Lizzie Yarnowski, and that you married her under the name of Sadie Bings before a justice of the peace at Piqua, Ohio."
At one time Gottlieb and I represented a very objectionable old party who ran a scurrilous "society" paper, chiefly for the opportunity it gave him to blackmail people. His method was the very simple one of publishing some unfounded scandal without using any names, and then to print a paragraph immediately following in which the real names of the parties appeared, ostensibly with relation to some other item of news:
"It is a well-known fact that a certain young society couple, both of whom have, to say the least, led rather lurid lives, are no longer on good terms and are carrying on—sub rosa—independent establishments. Mr. —— prefers the upper West Side, while Mrs. —— has a tidy little Louis XVI flat on Eleventh Street. Incidentally the family mansion remains at —— Fifth Avenue.
"Mr. and Mrs. Kopeck Louis d'Or Jones are not going to Newport this summer. There is a persistent rumor that Mrs. Jones will remain with her mother on the Hudson, while her husband's plans are quite indefinite."
In point of fact it was Gottlieb who had invented this neat method of publishing scandal without any of the usual attendant risks. Generally what would happen would be that the day after the issuing of the number in which the objectionable article had appeared, Mr. Kopeck Louis d'Or Jones would call up the white-haired editor ofSocial Siftingon the telephone and tell him that he proposed to sue him for libel unless he printed an immediate retraction. Our client would thereupon refer him to Gottlieb, who would explain to Mr. Jones that the libel in question had no reference to him whatsoever; that he could hardly expectfavorableitems to appear about him unless he took a financial interest in the paper; and end by offering to negotiate a purchase for him of some of the stock. In many instances the injured parties would instantly take this means of insuring that no further publications of such a character should appear. The stock usually cost about ten thousand dollars, which went into the pocket of the "General," as he was called; and from that time on none but the most pleasing reflections could be found in the columns of his paper in regard to its new stockholder.
Unfortunately for all parties, however, the "General" took exception to the size of one of our bills and we parted with mutual recriminations, although he had paid us many thousands of dollars in fees and we had saved him many more in judgments. He still owed us a large sum of money, but Gottlieb had tied up his property in such a fashion that the old fellow was judgment-proof. He was thus able to snap his fingers in our faces, a fact that naturally intensified our hard feelings against him. We cherished our anger until an appropriate occasion should present itself for getting even with him, which occurred sooner than any of us, least of all the "General," expected.
It so happened that one of the victims, having failed to "come across" substantially enough, discovered very shortly another libelous paragraph, which reflected very seriously upon his young and attractive wife; and as it was pretty generally known at the time that the "General" and ourselves had parted company, the husband forthwith came to us for advice.
"Of course," said he ruefully, "I can't thrash a white-haired villain who is old enough to be my grandfather, even if I could get to him, which is unlikely. You know he has an inner office 'way off from the rest and sneaks in and out, up and down the back stairs. A suit for libel wouldn't do any good and the publicity would hurt more than the satisfaction I might get out of a verdict. But vengeance I'll have—at any cost. How can I get it?"
Gottlieb pondered the matter for several days and at last sent for his new client, at the same time making an appointment at our office with a well-known feather-weight prize-fighter.
"If you will leave this matter to me I'll guarantee—for a thousand dollars—that the 'General' shall receive as severe a pounding as his old carcass can stand."
The client joyfully wrote out a check to our order and an hour later Hennessey, the celebrated bantam, arrayed in the uniform of an overgrown messenger boy, called with a letter at the "General's" office and asked to see him. He had, he insisted, orders to deliver the letter into nobody's hands but those of the "General" himself, and on this pretext in due course found himself, after being led through a labyrinth of passages and stairs, in the presence of our ex-client.
"Are you General ——?" he inquired.
"That's my name," answered the "General."
"I've got a letter for yous," continued the bantam, fumbling in his cap and producing two letters, one of which he handed over.
The "General" took it and his eye glinted for he perceived that it was addressed to a very well-known member of society whose escapades were notorious. Quickly he ran his penknife through the tongue of the envelope.
"Hold on, there!" suddenly cried Hennessey. "I've give yous the wrong letter. Here's yours. That one is for Mr. ——. Gimme it back!"
"One moment, my boy!" replied the "General," hastily tearing open the envelope. "Just one moment."
"Don't you take out dat letter! It ain't fer yous!" expostulated the messenger. "Here's your letter."
But the "General," with watering mouth, was already feverishly devouring a violet-colored note beginning, "Darling Guy," his bulbous nose close to the paper and scenting scandal in every line —that is, he devoured it until, quite unexpectedly, the bantam squared off and proceeded to hand him a few "upper cuts," "hooks," and straight leads from the shoulder, until the scandalmonger howled for mercy. But the bantam had his instructions.
"No!" says he. Bing! "I'll teach you to read other people's letters!" Bing! "I'll show yous what yous'll get if yous violates de United States mail—see?" Bing! "Read Mr. ——'s letter, will yous?" Bing! "Not wit' me here—see?" Bing! Bing! "You white- haired old son of a printing-press!"
Hennessey's description, on his return to the office, of the "General's" appearance at the conclusion of his drubbing was eminently satisfactory; and he forthwith exchanged his messenger's uniform for his Broadway regalia and a crisp one-hundred dollar bill. That is the only time, so far as I ever learned, that the "General" ever got his real deserts; but I am glad that he did, for once. And the sight of his red nose—somehow it looks redder now than it used to—invariably fills me with satisfaction.
Quite naturally our firm attracted a number of strange wastrels in the way of clients, all of whom were picturesque and many of them profitable. Among these was a gentleman known as the "Human Dog," who frequented the main thoroughfares during the crowded hours and simulated the performances of a starving animal with a verisimilitude that I believe to have been unsurpassed in the annals of beggary. He would go on all fours snuffling along the gutters for food and when he came to a morsel of offal he would fall upon it and devour it ravenously. If he found nothing he would whine and sit on his hind legs—so to speak—on the curb, with an imploring look on his hairy face. If a police officer approached the "Human Dog" would immediately roll over on his back, with his legs in the air, and yelp piteously; in fact, he combined the "lay" of insanity with that of starvation in a most ingenious and skilful manner. He was a familiar sight and a bugbear to the police, who were constantly arresting him; but, as he never asked for money, they had great difficulty in doing anything with him. Usually the magistrate sent him to the "Island," for thirty days and then Gottlieb would get him out on a writ of habeas corpus. Some of these writs attracted the attention of the bar and several appear in the reports. I am under the impression that we secured his release some twenty-nine separate times. At last he died in a fit of apoplexy caused by overeating; and when we administered his estate we found that he had already laid by, in a comparatively brief career, the very creditable sum of forty-one thousand dollars.
The "Human Dog" was but a clever variation of the "Crust-Thrower" —the beggar who tosses a dirty crust of bread into the gutter when no one is looking and then falls upon it with a cry of fierce joy. These "crust-throwers" have plied their trade for over six hundred years and were known in England and Flanders long before the discovery of America. Gottlieb was very shrewd at devising schemes that came just within the law and used to amuse himself by so doing in his leisure moments. One of the best—the idea which he sold for three hundred dollars and which is still being used in New York, Chicago, and elsewhere—is the following:
An old man, with a square of plate glass in a newspaper and a bundle of glass-cutter's tools by his side is seen sitting dejectedly on a curb with his head in his hands. He has no coat and the icy wind blows through his straggling locks of gray hair—a pathetic picture. He seems utterly discouraged, but no word of complaint passes his lips. Presently a well-dressed woman approaches and her pity is instantly aroused. She accosts him, and the aged one informs her in a faint voice that he works in Harlem and has been sent by his boss to set a pane of glass on Varick Street; but not knowing exactly where Varick Street is, he has got off the elevated at Fifty-ninth Street and finds that he is still several miles from his destination. What woman, unless she had a heart of granite, would not be moved by such a tale! She opens her purse and pours its contents into his lap; for it is a psychological truth that, if you can once get a woman up to the point of giving anything, she will give all that she has. How often have I seen these old men—the children of Gottlieb's brain—sitting patiently and silently on the streets! And how often have they paid us handsome fees to get them out of the "jug"!
In this catalogue of clients I must not forget "Banana Anna," who recently, I am sad to say, met her Waterloo. Anna was a lady so peculiarly gifted by the Almighty that she was able at will to simulate a very severe physical mishap. I shall not describe with any greater degree of particularity what her precise affliction was, save to say that if genuine it would have entitled her to the sympathy and generosity of mankind. It was the kind of thing that might easily result from a fall; but which, in fact, under ordinary circumstances gave her no inconvenience whatever.
Anna would conceal a bit of banana peel in her muff and, dropping in upon a station platform, would put her heel upon it and fall prostrate, uttering a groan of pain. The guard would come hastily to her assistance and find, to his horror, a woman with every mark of respectability suffering terrible agony from a condition obviously the result of a fall caused by a bit of banana skin carelessly left lying upon the premises. An ambulance would be summoned, but she would insist upon being taken to her own home—an imposing mansion —and calling her own physician. In due course the railroad would send its doctor, who would report that her condition was serious; and, as the leaving of a banana peel upon a public platform is in its very nature "negligent," the company's lawyer would recommend settlement. Thus "Banana Anna" was able to live in comfort if not in luxury; and an infirmity that might under other circumstances have been a curse became, in fact, a blessing. Of course she took a new name and hired—temporarily—a new residence for each accident; but, as she moved from city to city, she was able to keep up the same old ruse for years.
Perhaps our most interesting client was the one who made his living by supplying "to the trade" all kinds of corporate bonds and certificates of stock. Some of these bonds had originally been issued by corporations in good standing, but had been exchanged, cancelled, outlawed, or in some other way had become valueless. How our client secured them I never discovered. He also dealt in the repudiated bonds of Southern cities and States, which can be purchased for practically nothing almost everywhere.
His principal line of goods, however, was the bonds of companies that he incorporated himself and disposed of at cut rates to a clientele all his own. These companies all bore impressive names, such as Tennessee Gas, Heat, and Power Company, the Mercedes-Panard- Charon Motor Vehicle Supply Company, the Nevada Coal, Coke, Iron, and Bi-product Company, the Chicago Banking and Securities Company, the Southern Georgia Land and Fruit Company, and so on. He had an impressive office in a marble-fronted building on Wall Street, doors covered with green baize inside and gold lettering outside, and he wore a tall hat and patent-leather shoes. He also had a force of several young lady stenographers and clerks, who acted as the officers and directors of his various concerns, all of which were legally incorporated under the laws of West Virginia and New Jersey. His clients were the gilt-edged "con" men of Wall and Nassau Streets, who, when they needed them, could purchase a couple of hundred engraved one-thousand-dollar bonds of imposing appearance, in a real corporation, for a few hundred dollars in cash.
Our client did not act as an officer of these himself, but merely took a power of attorney from the president, secretary, and treasurer, authorizing him to sign their names to these bond issues. Yet no one ever saw these officers, all of whom had names connotative of wealth and financial responsibility. The Gates, Morgan, Rogers, and other families multiplied and brought forth at the mere wave of his pen. If you wished a half-million bond issue you simply called him up on the telephone and some "Light and Power Company" would hold a directors' meeting and vote a fifty-year debenture gold seven-per-cent security that you could peddle around at fifty- eight and one-eighth to unsuspecting investors, so as to net them merely thirteen per cent. on their money—when they got it. You could buy a million in these bonds for about three hundred and seventy-five dollars and fifty cents; but they were real bonds in real companies and legally issued against some form of property, even if it had no market value. Sometimes, I am told, these securities paid interest for a year or so, and the suckers got their friends in while there were a few left—bonds, I mean—there are always suckers.
Like other egoists, our client became careless as time went on and one day took it upon himself to issue a few hundred bonds in a company without holding a directors' meeting. He should not be severely blamed for neglecting a detail of this sort when he was so well aware of its purely formal if not farcical character. Still, it was one of those little slips that even the most careful of us will sometimes make, and the district-attorney took an underhand advantage of our friend and indicted him for forging the names of the officers of the company to an unauthorized issue of bonds. Gottlieb and I had, perforce, to defend him; but, unfortunately, his real defence would have been even worse than the charge. He could not say that there was no real company and that there were no such human beings as the persons whose names he had written across the back of the bonds in question.
Poor fellow! He was an absolutely innocent man. Yet he went to Sing Sing for seven years for committing no crime at all. How could he forge the names of persons who did not exist? However, he had invented these financial Frankensteins and they finally overwhelmed him. Somewhere lying around I have my share of the fee in this case—I forget just where. It consists of fourteen millions in the securities of the National Mortgage and Security Company of Jampole, Mississippi.
The fear that most people have of the criminal law has its origin in their ignorance of it. They are, luckily, most of them unfamiliar with bailiffs and constables, except at a distance. The gruff voice of authority has echoed but dimly for them. They have heard of the "third degree," "the cooler," "the sweat-box," and "the bracelets," yet they have never seen the inside of a station-house; and their knowledge of jails, if they have any at all, is derived from reading in their childhood of the miraculous escapes of Baron Trenck or the Fall of the Bastille. They picture officers of the law as human bulldogs, with undershot, foam-dripping jaws and bloodshot eyes. The bourne—from which so many travellers never return—bounded by the criminal statutes, is aterra incognitato the average citizen. A bailiff with a warrant for his arrest would cause his instant collapse and a message that "all was discovered" would—exactly as in the popular saw—lead him to flee at once.
Upon this dread of the unknown the criminal attorney plays whenever possible. It is his strongest asset, his stock in trade. The civil lawyer, vaguely believing that there must be a criminal law to cover every obvious wrong, retains him to put the screws on the evil-doer and bring him to terms. The man who has done a dirty business trick—in reality a hundred miles from being a crime— engages the shyster to keep him out of jail. The practical weapon of the criminal lawyer is the warrant of arrest. Just as at civil law any one can bring a groundless suit and subject his enemy to much annoyance and expense, so almost anybody can get almost anybody else arrested. Of course if there is no justification for it a suit for malicious prosecution and false arrest may arise; but most persons who resort to such tactics are "judgment proof" and the civil law has no terrors for them at all. At least fifty persons out of every hundred would gladly pay an unrighteous claim rather than be subjected to the humiliation of arrest, even if their confinement were of the most temporary character.
In New York the right of having the defendant arrested in certain classes of civil cases is a matter of statute. It is a preliminary remedy not half as much availed of as it might be. The young lady who brings a breach-of-promise suit against her faithless follower has the right to put him under arrest and make him give bail; and the young gentleman who would laugh ordinarily at the mere service of papers may well settle her claim if a sheriff whispers in his ear that he has a warrant for his person.
In the early days, before Gottlieb and I practised at the criminal bar, a judgment creditor could arrest and lock up his delinquent debtor. This was a most ancient and honorable form of redress; and the reader has undoubtedly read dozens of novels in which some of the scenes are laid in "Fleet Street." This locking up of people who owed other people money but could not meet their just obligations was sanctified by tradition and deeply rooted in our jurisprudence; but the law governing the procedure in such cases was highly technical and the wind of destiny was somewhat tempered to the shorn lamb of the creditor. Thus, a warrant for the arrest of a debtor could not be executed on the Sabbath, and, of course, had no value outside of the State. Accordingly the neighboring cities of New Jersey harbored thousands of bankrupt New Yorkers who could not pay their bills and suffered a voluntary exile until they should be in funds again. Indeed, there were certain hostelries entirely given over to their accommodation. The man who had defied his creditors simply converted his available property into ready cash and slipped across the river to Jersey City or Hoboken, where he remained six days in every week and returned to the bosom of his adoring family on the seventh.
Later on civil orders of arrest were limited by statute to certain classes of cases, such as, for instance, the conversion of money.
Among our clients there was a certain exceedingly attractive young lady of French extraction, named Mademoiselle Valerie Carrell, who was a popular favorite upon the light-opera stage when light opera was in swaddling-clothes. Our fair client, like many another histrionic genius, had more charm than business ability and was persuaded by an unscrupulous manager to intrust to him a large sum of money for investment in his various enterprises. Time went on, and, although he seemed to be successful in his ventures, he insisted that he had no money and was absolutely unable to repay her. In utter desperation she came to Gottlieb and myself for assistance and we speedily secured judgment for the full amount—fifteen thousand dollars—after a hotly contested trial, in which the defendant perjured himself very unlike a gentleman. The only result was that Mr. Brown, the manager, gayly offered to settle for fifteen hundred, and, on receiving a curt refusal, transferred his residence to Hoboken, from which place he managed his business and paid furtive visits to the metropolis in the night-time. On Sundays, however, he always appeared in full regalia on Broadway and could invariably be seen entertaining his friends lavishly in the restaurants.
Gottlieb suffered this course of conduct to become a habit and then informed me that he proposed to collect the full amount of Mademoiselle Carrell's judgment upon the following Monday. I expressed some incredulity at the idea, but later events proved that my partner was well justified in his prophecy. We had long before procured a warrant for Brown's arrest and the only difficulty lay in executing it upon a week-day. Sunday came and as usual Brother Brown, with his customary bravado, made his appearance in the city. That evening Gottlieb invited me to dine with him at the resort ordinarily frequented by our quarry. True to his invariable custom, Brown turned up there with a party of his cronies and spent the evening in merry feasting, presumably upon the money of our client. It was a clear, moonlight night and when the glowworm showed the matin to be near—or, more correctly, when it neared twelve o'clock— Brown beckoned to the waiter, paid his bill out of a fat roll of greenbacks, winked good-naturedly at us, and bade his friends good- night. A moment or two later Gottlieb whispered to me to follow him and we stepped forth upon the street. Brown was strolling quietly down Broadway toward Twenty-third Street. A short distance behind followed a thick-set man with a square-cut jaw whom I had frequently noticed in Gottlieb's office.
On the corner of the cross-town thoroughfare Brown paused, looked first at the moon and then at his watch, and proceeded on his constitutional toward the ferry. The street, save for a distant and presumably somnolent policeman, was deserted. The thick-set man crossed to the other side of the way, quickened his steps, overtook and passed Brown, recrossed and sauntered toward him. A moment later there was a collision between them, voices were raised in angry altercation and presently Brown was rolling undignifiedly on the pavement, his calls for the police rending the stillness of the night. The officer hastily approached, whistling wildly for aid. Gottlieb and I took refuge in an adjacent doorway. Abruptly, however, Brown's outcries ceased. It is probably that a sudden vision of the consequences of an appeal to police protection came to him as he lay like an overturned June-bug upon the sidewalk. But the law had been invoked. The car of Juggernaut had started upon its course.
"What's the trouble here?" cried the policeman, as he arrived panting upon the scene.
"This fellow here assaulted me!" instantly answered the man with the bulldog jaw.
"It's a lie!" bellowed Brown, climbing to his feet.
"Well, what have you got to say?" inquired the officer.
Brown hesitated. If he made a counter charge he realized that he would have to go to the police station to make the complaint. This would keep him in the city until after midnight.
"Well?" continued the policeman.
Still Brown paused, rapidly taking account of stock. If he did not deny the charge in terms he would be locked up, which was just as bad. But the bull-jawed chap spoke first.
"I want this man arrested!" he insisted. "He deliberately attacked me!"
"I did no such thing!" shouted Brown. "He came at me without provocation and knocked me down."
"It took you long enough to say so," commented the officer. "I'll have to take you along to the house. Come on, both of you."
Grasping Brown by the arm, he marched him down the street. Suddenly the unfortunate manager began to pour forth a long explanation, quite incoherent so far as the policeman was concerned. He was the victim of a frame-up—it was a job to get him arrested. The officer remarked unsympathetically that he had heard that sort of thing many times before. Gottlieb and I skulked in the rear. When the police station was at last reached the thick-set man made a charge of assault against the manager and Brown was compelled perforce to make a similar charge against his adversary. Then both were locked up to await a hearing the next morning in the magistrate's court, when, after a prolonged examination, Brown was discharged with an admonition against a too free indulgence in alcoholic liquors.
"Don't be hard on him, judge," said the bull-jawed man. "I had no trouble in defending myself. I think he has had lesson enough."
Much the worse for wear, Mr. Brown passed out of the court-room, only to be confronted on the sidewalk by a marshal with a warrant for his arrest. It was Monday morning. His period of immunity was over. His eye caught Gottlieb and myself standing on the corner.
"Well, boys," he exclaimed ruefully, "I'm caught. How much is it going to cost?"
"Fifteen thousand dollars," answered Gottlieb, adding, after a moment's pause—"and disbursements."
I need hardly add that Mr. Brown lost no time in raising the necessary ransom and within the hour had paid his judgment in full and secured his discharge. The days are long since over, however, when judgment defaulters had anything to fear; and now a beneficent bankruptcy law, merely for the asking, washes all their debts away. But the power to secure another's arrest is even more easily available now than in the days of my early practice owing to the great number of new crimes created by the statutes.
One of the most ingenious devices for extorting money that ever came to my attention was invented by a client of mine named Levine —a poor sort of character, to be sure, but cleverer than many a better man. In detail his method was as follows: He first bought at wholesale a large quantity of cheap watches covered with gold plate. To the inexperienced they looked as if they might possibly be worth forty or fifty dollars apiece. They cost Levine about two dollars and twenty-five cents each. His next step was to select some small shop belonging to a plumber, grocer, or electrician which was ordinarily left in the charge of a clerk while the owner was out attending to his work or securing orders. Levine would find some excuse for entering the shop, engage the clerk in conversation, and having secured his attention would produce one of his watches and extol its merits at length, explaining what a great bargain it was and how—only owing to an exceptional concatenation of circumstances—he was able to offer it for the ridiculously low figure of thirty dollars.
Now it never made any difference to Levine whether the clerk wanted the watch or not. His procedure remained the same in all cases. He would first offer to let the fellow have it by paying one dollar a week on the installment plan. If this did not appeal to the clerk Levine would persuade him to keep it for a short time on approval, paying down a dollar "as security." Almost all of his victims would agree to this if only to be rid of him. In default of aught else he would lay the watch on the counter and run away.
Nothing more would occur for a couple of weeks, during which the clerk would hold the watch pending its owner's return, little suspecting what was going on meantime. Levine, having "landed" his watch, immediately swore to a verified complaint in an action at law for "goods sold and delivered," setting forth on the date in question he had sold—not to the clerk, but to hisemployer— a gold watch for the sum of fifty dollars, which the latter had then and there promised to pay for at once. The complaint further recited that the money had been duly demanded and payment refused, and asked judgment for fifty dollars and the costs and disbursements of the action. Levine would then procure from some irresponsible person an affidavit that the latter had personally served a copy of the complaint in question, together with a summons, upon the defendant, and place the case on the calendar for trial. Of course no papers were in fact served upon anybody and Levine would in due course secure judgment by default for sixty-odd dollars. Armed with a certified copy of the judgment and a writ of attachment, and accompanied by a burly deputy marshal selected for the ferocity of his appearance, Levine would wait until some opportune time when the owner of the shop was again absent and the shop had been left in charge of the same clerk or a member of the family. Bursting roughly in, he would demand whether or not it was the intention of the owner to pay the judgment, while at the same moment the deputy would levy on the stock in trade.
The owner of the shop, having been hastily summoned, would return to demand angrily what the rumpus was all about. By this time the clerk would have recovered his wits sufficiently to denounce the proceeding as an outrage and the suit as baseless. But his master, who saw judgment against himself for sixty dollars and his goods actually under attachment, was usually in no mood to listen to, much less believe, his clerk's explanations. At all events, they availed naught, when Levine, with an expression of horror at such deliberate mendacity on the part of the clerk, was wont to say:
"Ask him, pray, whether he has not got the watch in his pocket at this very moment!"
Usually this was indeed the fact, as the clerk had no idea what else to do with it until Levine should return.
"So-ho!" his master would shout wrathfully. "What do you mean by saying that you did not agree to buy the watch? Why, you have kept it all the time! What's more, you've pretended to buy it in my name! And now my shop is turned into a bear garden and there is a judgment against me and my goods are attached! A fine result of your extravagance!"
"But I never agreed to buy it!" insists the clerk. "This man left it here on approval!"
"Pish!" answers the employer. "That is all very well; but what have you to say to the judgment of the court? Now, my fine fellow, you will either pay up this money that you owe or I'll advance it myself and take it out of your wages."
In every case, despite the protests of the clerk, the money would be handed over and the shop released from levy. Unfortunately, after working the game for several years, Levine came a cropper by carelessly trying it on one of the same clerks that he had victimized some time before. The clerk, being of an unusually vindictive disposition, followed the matter up. Having first arrested the man who made the false affidavit of service, he induced him to turn State's evidence against my client and landed the latter in jail. Being a great reader, however, Levine did not find his incarceration particularly unpleasant; and, hearing of the Court of Appeals decision in the McDuff case, he spent his time in devising new schemes to take the place of his now antiquated specialty. On his release he immediately became a famous "sick engineer" and for a long time enjoyed the greatest prosperity, until one of his friends victimized him at his own game by inducing him to bet ten thousand dollars on the outcome of a prize-fight that he was simple-minded enough to believe had already been fought and won.
This was an elaborate variation of the ordinary wire-tapping game, where the sucker or lamb is introduced to a person alleged to be an inside official of a large telegraph company, who is ready to sell advance information of the results of sporting events in return for a share in the profits. The victim is taken to a supposed "branch office" of the company and actually hears the results of the races coming in over the wires and being telephoned to the pool- rooms. Of course the whole place is merely a plant fitted up for his benefit. He is then taken to a supposed pool-room and gives up his money for the purpose of having it placed as a wager on a horse-race already won. Under the McDuff case, it had been held by the courts that he had parted with his money for an illegal and dishonest purpose—to wit, in an attempt to win money from another who was wagering his own money in good faith—and the rogue who had seduced his conscience and slit his purse went free. This was Levine's favorite field of operations.
But his friend went him one better. Knowing that Levine had salted away a lot of money, he organized a gang of "cappers" and boosters, who made a great talk about the relative merits of two well-known pugilists. It was given out that a fight was to be "pulled off" up the Hudson and a party was made up to attend it. A private car was taken by the friend in question and Levine was the guest of honor. Champagne flowed freely. The fight came off in a deserted barn near a siding above Poughkeepsie; and Levine wagered all of his money, with other prosperous-looking guests in the car, under the assumption that a bargain had been made between the "pugs" that his man should win. But the supposed sports were all "boosters" in his friend's pay and the other man won after a spirited exhibition, which, although exciting, hardly consoled Levine for the loss of his money.
It is a curious fact that those of my clients who made great sums from time to time in ways similar to these rarely had any money; most of them died in abject poverty. Sooner or later all ran foul of the law and had to give up to the lawyers all they had managed to lay by.
When at last John Holliday, a dealer in automatic musical instruments, was "trimmed" out of sixty-five thousand dollars by various schemes of this character, the tardy Legislature finally amended the penal code in such a way as to do away with the farcical doctrine of the McDuff case and drove all our erstwhile clients out of business.
"Shake hands with Mr. Dillingham, Quib," said Gottlieb as I one day unexpectedly entered the latter's office. "We have a matter on hand in which he is interested."
"Glad to know you, Mr. Quibble," quoth the client, extending a rather soft hand. "Your name is well known to me, although I have never personally had the pleasure of your acquaintance."
"The future will, I trust, remedy that," I replied, not particularly impressed with the stranger's features or expression, but conscious somehow of the smell of money about him. For he was short and fat and wore a brown surtout and a black stovepipe hat, and his little gray eyes peeped out of full, round, red cheeks. On his lower lip he wore a tiny goatee.
"As I was saying," he continued, turning again to my partner, "we all of us make mistakes and I made the biggest one when I annexed the present Mrs. D. I was a young fool hardly out of my teens, and the sight of a pretty face and a tearful story of woe were too much for me. She was an actress.Comprenez?A sort of Lydia Languish, la-de-da kind of a girl. Oh, she caught me fast enough, and it was only after I had swallowed the hook, sinker and all, that I found out she was married."
"Ho-ho!" remarked Gottlieb. "The old story."
"The same little old story," assented Dillingham. "Take a cigar?"He produced a well-filled case.
I dropped into a chair and hitched it toward them.
"Now, the fact of the matter is," continued he, "she wouldn't look at me as long as she was tied to her husband, miserable rat though he was; and he was and is a rat! I could call and take her out to dinner, and all that, but—pst! nothing more! and she was always telling me how I was her good angel and inspired her to higher things! Gad! even then it bored me! But I could see nothing but her face. You know how it is. I was twenty-six and a clerk in a hardware house."
He laughed grimly.
"Well, as luck would have it, my Uncle John died just about that time and left me ten thousand dollars and I started in to make her my own by getting her a divorce. Now, this husband of hers was a wretched fellow—the son of a neighbor—who never got beyond being a waiter in a railroad station. Say, it is rather rough, eh? To think of me, Dillingham, of Dillingham, Hodges & Flynn, the biggest independent steel man in the State, tied up to a pale-faced woman who can't speak the King's English properly and whose first husband is a waiter—yes, a waiter to-day, understand, in a railroad restaurant at Baltimore! It makes me sick every time I go to Washington. I can't eat—fact! So I hired a lawyer for her—you know him, I guess—Bunce. Oscar Willoughby Bunce! And he prepared divorce papers—Oh, we had cause enough! And the next time Hawkins —that was the husband's name, Arthur P. Hawkins—came over to New York, to borrow some money from his wife, Bunce slapped a summons on him. It makes me squirm to think how delighted I was to know we had actually begun our case. Hawkins hired a lawyer, I believe, and pretended he was going to put up a defence, but I bought him off and we got our decree by default. Then, gentlemen"—Dillingham paused with a wry face—"I had the inestimable privilege of marrying my present wife!"
He sucked meditatively on his cigar for a few moments before resuming his narrative.
"Curious, isn't it—the fascination of the stage? You, gentlemen, probably have observed it even more than I have; but when he sees a slim girl with yellow curls capering around in tights behind the footlights, a young man's imagination runs riot and he fancies her the incarnation of coquetry and the personification of vivacious loveliness. I admit it—the present Mrs. Dillingham was a dancer. On the stage she used to ogle me out of my shoes and off it she'd help me spend my money and drink my wine and jolly me up to beat the cars; but once I'd married her she changed completely. Instead of a dashing, snappy, tantalizing sort of a little Yum-Yum, she turned religious and settled down so you wouldn't have known her. There was nothing in it. Instead of a peach I had acquired a lemon. I expected champagne and found I was drinking buttermilk. Get me? You would never have guessed she'd been inside a theatre in her life. Well, we got along the best we could and she made a hit at the church, as a brand plucked from the burning. Used to tell her experiences Friday nights and have all the parsons up to five- o'clock tea. Meanwhile I forgot my romantic dreams of flashing eyes and twinkling feet and began to get interested in business. To-day I'm worth real money and am on top of the heap downtown; but socially—Good Lord! the woman's a millstone! She's grown fat and talks through her nose, and—"
"You want to get rid of her," finished Gottlieb.
"Exactly!" answered Dillingham. "How much will it cost?"
"I think you had better give me your check for ten thousand dollars to begin with," replied my partner. "Such a case presents great difficulties—almost insuperable without money. I am not even sure that what you want can be accomplished without running grave personal risks—not on your part, but on ours. Such risks must be compensated for. What you desire, I take it, is to have your marriage annulled. To do that it will be necessary to prove that the divorce procured by Mrs. Dillingham from her former husband, Hawkins, was improperly and illegally granted. We must knock out the decree in HawkinsversusHawkins somehow or other. To be frank with you, it may cost you a large sum."
"It is worth it," answered Dillingham. "Free me from this woman and I'll give you twenty-five thousand dollars."
"Make it thirty-five thousand dollars," coaxed Gottlieb.
"Well, then, thirty-five thousand dollars," said Dillingham after a pause.
"But you must promise to do exactly what we tell you!" continued my partner.
"I expect to," replied the other.
"Very good, then," said Gottlieb. "In the first place, the original decree is no good unless the summons actually was served on Hawkins and the suit properly commenced. Now, perhaps Bunce served the wrong man. He didn't know Hawkins. The latter was merely pointed out to him. Already I begin to feel that there is grave doubt as to whether the proceedings in HawkinsversusHawkins were ever legally initiated."
"Hold on, Mr. Gottlieb!" remonstrated Dillingham. "You want to go easy there. After Hawkins was served he retained a lawyer. I know that, dammit, because it cost me twenty-five hundred dollars to get rid of him."
"What was his name?" asked Gottlieb sharply.
"Crookshank—Walter E. Crookshank—down on Nassau Street."
Gottlieb gave a short, dry laugh.
"Luck's with you, Dillingham. Crookshank died three years ago."
None of us broke silence for the space of about two minutes.
"You see now why this sort of thing costs money?" finally remarked my partner.
Dillingham wiped his forehead with his handkerchief nervously.
"Say," he began, "isn't that taking a pretty long chance? I—"
"It is taking no chance at all," retorted Gottlieb, his little eyes glistening like a snake's. "You have simply retained us to see if your wife's original divorce was regular—not to see if it was irregular—catch on? You tell us nothing. We ask you nothing. We make our investigation. Much to our surprise and horror, we discover that the defendant never was served—perhaps that he never even knew of the proceeding until years afterward. We don't know what you know. We simply advise you the divorce is N. G. and you ask no questions. We'll attend to all that—for our thirty-five thousand dollars."
"Well, you know your business," responded Dillingham hesitantly, "and I leave the matter in your hands. How long will it take?"
"Everything now depends on our friend Hawkins," replied Gottlieb. "We may be able to hand you your manumission papers in three months."
When Dillingham had written out his check and bade us good day I no longer made any pretence of concealing from my partner my perturbation. I had, of course, known that from time to time we had skated on thin ice; but this was the first occasion upon which Gottlieb had deliberately acknowledged to a client that he would resort to perjury to accomplish his ends.
"Don't you think we're running entirely too close to the wind?" I asked, pacing up and down the office.
"My dear Quib," answered Gottlieb soothingly, "don't agitate yourself over so trifling a matter. The only living man who can prove that Hawkins was served is Bunce—and Bunce is a fool. At best it would simply be one swearing against the other. We have a perfect right to believe Hawkins in preference to Bunce if we choose. Anyhow, we're not the judge. All we have to do is to present the evidence at our command—if we can get it. And, by God! we will get it if it costs us ten thousand dollars! Why, Quib, the thing is a windfall. Thirty-five thousand! Why, thirty-fivehundredfor such a case would be a big fee!"
"I don't know!" I answered, for I felt a curious premonition in the matter. "Something tells me that we ought to take no chances."
"Come, come!" quoth Gottlieb, with a light show of irritation. "Don't lose your nerve. You've done many a worse thing than this, to my own knowledge!"
I do not pretend to any virtue in the matter and yet I must admit to some feelings of compunction about Mrs. Dillingham. Truth to tell, I had taken a strong dislike to her husband, with his sleek confidence and cold-blooded selfishness. In addition, I was quite sure that there was some other fell reason why he wished to divorce her—probably he had another marriage in contemplation, even if he had not admitted it.
"I wish we could make the beggar do his own dirty work," I exclaimed.
"But what does he pay us for?" inquired Gottlieb innocently. "Quib, just think of the money!"
I had, in fact, been thinking of the money, and it looked very good to me. Since my days in Haight & Foster's law office, a great, great change had come in my manner of life; and, though my friends to a great extent remained among the theatrical and sporting class to which I had received my first introduction on coming to New York, I now occupied a large brick house with stone trimmings in Washington Square, where I entertained in truly luxurious fashion. I had a French cook and an English butler, and drove a pair of trotters that were second to none except those of William H. Vanderbilt, with whom I had many a fast brush on the speedways.