The Accused. tration enough to see that. he is exhausting the patience of his lawyer, and so he pur sues the unwarranted course of settling be hind the lawyer's back. His surprise is great if the lawyer expects or asks anything more than a nominal fee; his surprise is greater when the lawyer upbraids him for his furtive unfairness. Another client proposes to push the suit to the bitter end : " I will have the law on him," is his favorite remark. It is immaterial to him if the law happens to look with disfavor on his claim. He is convinced that some great benefit is likely to accrue from the mere commencement of litigation. New developments only make less certain the chances of success, and the lawyer becomes more and more outspoken in advising discon tinuance of the suit. Displeased with what he calls the cowardice or indifference of his counsel, he withdraws the case from his hands and seeks a more congenial adviser, without forgetting, however, to declare openly that he has good ground for suspecting collusion between his discarded lawyer and the oppos ing counsel. But there are distrustful lawyers as well as distrustful clients. The object of distrust is to the lawyer what the financial adventurer is to the broker or banker of good standing and means, but with this' difference, — that the adventurer is without pecuniary resources, while the party whom the attorney distrusts is generally a man of possessions and influ ence. He is a man of that furtive glance which betokens studied measures, of ready response impelled by accurate intuitions, of fortunate tact, of experience which he puts to constant advantage, of great happiness in eliciting information without putting himself under obligations to his informant, and of the valuable faculty of not making himself particularly offensive to those upon whom he imposes. He is distrusted, not disliked. This creature only appears in the attorney's office in the discharge of some social errand or to make an inquiry of a personal nature. He enters a friend, and never departs a client. He accomplishes his end on the street, in the S
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horse-car, in the train, at the dinner, at the reception, at the fireside. How skilful he is in the employment of hypothesis! How artfully he refers to the last great law case which has attracted public attention! How delicately he passes an observation upon a friend's proposed action, which he fears may be prohibited by some provision of law! The lawyer is conscious of the imposition when he imparts the information, but he can hardly re sist the fascination of the importunity. There are clients and clients, — that is, those who compensate the attorney well and those who only partly compensate him; but this individ ual is neither. He is at first regarded as a kind of " quasi-client," one who will some day prove a source of pecuniary blessing; but this idea is not long entertained. The lawyer gives him up as the sportsman at last gives up the bird which has led him over field and through swamp, wood, and bramble without coming within range of his gun. But it is said that the average attorney is neither proficient nor profound. Those who are supposed to be sensible sometimes com plain that he will not answer an apparently simple question until he has fortified himself by an examination of the law. His prudence should be to his credit. It is said of the ablest lawyers that they are diffident of their own powers. When we consider that in the English-speaking nations alone there are, roughly estimated, five million pages of law literature, we must applaud rather than con demn the attorney who makes no claim to universal information. "Why, dear me!" said the old lady who saw for the first time a meagre law library in a country office. "All them books on law? Why, I thought they had the whole thing in a volume, and that the lawyers changed it round just as they pleased." The ignorant and thought less are probably misled by individual as sumption and pretence. Certain lawyers sometimes gain a reputation by answering without reflection or investigation any ques tion that may be put to them, but it is not always a permanent reputation; the people
