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 <i:«> 
 
 '-Hi 
 
 THE 
 
 OF 
 
 AkfEMAS 
 QUIBBLE 
 
 ARTHUR TRAIN 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 FROM 
 
 Mrs. J. S.Trevor 
 
__ Cornell University Library 
 
 PS 3539.R15C7 
 
 The confessions of Artemas Quibble.beini 
 
 3 1924 021 710 839 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021710839 
 
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THE CONFESSIONS OF 
 ARTEMAS QUIBBLE 
 
THE CONFESSIONS 
 OF ARTEMAS QUIBBLE 
 
 Being the ingenuous and unTarniihed history of 
 Artemas Quibble, Esquire, one-time practitioner 
 in the New York Criminal Courts, together with 
 an account of the divers wiles, tricks, sophistries, 
 technicalities, and sundry artifices of himself 
 and others of the Fraternity, commonly yclept 
 "shysters" or "shyster lawyers," as edited 
 
 BY 
 
 ARTHUR TRAIN 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 NEW YORK : : 1911 
 
/\7iSj^ 
 
 JL. 
 
 COPXXIGBT, igll, BV 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Fubliihed September, tgii 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Our offices were thronged with clients of all sexes, ages, 
 
 conditions, and nationalities Frontispiece 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 He would grasp me firmly by the back of the neck and 
 force my nose toward the plate with the command, 
 "Eat, boy!" 6 
 
 " I see that you are a man of esprit I I shall be glad to 
 
 take you into my office" 48 
 
 Grasping Mr. Winthrop Van Rennsellaer by his linen 
 
 collar, he yanked him out of his chair .... 102 
 
 " You think you can take advantage of me because I'm 
 
 an old man!" he shrieked in his rage . . . . 130 
 
 He lay like an overturned June-bug upon the sidewalk . 158 
 
 "Did he ever serve you with any papers — in the Astor 
 
 House or an)rwhere else?" 182 
 
 I marvelled that Dillingham could have sacrificed such a 
 
 charming little daughter so easily 186 
 
THE CONFESSIONS OF 
 ARTEMAS QUIBBLE 
 
THE CONFESSIONS OF 
 ARTEMAS QUIBBLE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 I WAS born in the town of Lynn, Massachusetts, 
 upon the twenty-second day of February, in 
 the year 1855. UnUke most .writers of similar 
 memoirs, I shall cast no aspersions upon the in- 
 digent by stating that my parents were poor but 
 honest. They were poor and honest, as indeed, so 
 far as I have been able to ascertain, have been all 
 the Quibbles since the founder of the family came 
 over on the good ship Susan and Ellen in 1635 
 and, after marrying a lady's maid who had been 
 his fellow passenger, settled in the township of 
 Weston, built a mill, and divided his time equally 
 between selling rum to the Indians and rearing a 
 numerous progeny. 
 
 My father, the Reverend Ezra Quibble, was, to 
 be sure, poor enough. The salary that he received 
 as pastor of his church was meagre to the degree 
 of necessitating my wearing his over-worn and 
 
 3 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 discarded clerical vestments, which to some extent 
 may account for my otherwise inexplicable distaste 
 for things ecclesiastical. My mother was poor, 
 after wedlock, owing to the eccentricity of a parent 
 who was so inexorably opposed to religion that 
 he cut her off with a shilHng upon her marriage to 
 my father. Before this she had had and done 
 what she chose, as was fitting for the daughter of 
 a substantial citizen who had made a fortune in 
 shoe leather. 
 
 I remember that one of my first experiments 
 upon taking up the study of law was to investi- 
 gate my grandfather's will in the probate office, 
 with a view to determining whether or not, in his 
 fury against the church, he had violated any of 
 the canons of the law in regard to perpetuities 
 or restraints upon alienation; or whether in his 
 enthusiasm for the Society for the Propagation 
 of Free Thinking, which he had established and 
 intended to perpetuate, he had not been guilty of 
 some technical slip or blunder that would enable 
 me to seize upon its endowment for my own benefit. 
 But the will! alas, had been drawn by that most 
 careful of draughtsmen, old Tuckerman Toddle- 
 ham, of 14 Barristers' Hall, Boston, and was as 
 solid as the granite blocks of the court-house and 
 as impregnable of legal attack as the Constitution. 
 
 4 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 We lived in a frame house, painted a disconsolate 
 yellow. It abutted close upon the sidewalk and 
 permitted the passer-by to view the family as we 
 sat at meat or enjoyed the moderate delights of so- 
 cial intercourse with our neighbors, most of whom 
 were likewise parishioners of my father. 
 
 My early instruction was received in the public 
 schools of my native town, supplemented by tort- 
 ured hours at home with "Greenleaf's Mental 
 Arithmetic" and an exhaustive study of the major 
 and minor prophets. The former stood me in good 
 stead, but the latter I fear had small effect. At 
 any rate, the impression made upon me bore little 
 fruit, and after three years of them I found myself 
 in about the same frame of mind as the Oxford 
 student who, on being asked at his examination to 
 distinguish between the major and minor prophets, 
 wrote in answer: "God forbid that I should dis- 
 criminate between such holy men!" 
 
 But for all that I was naturally of a studious 
 and even scholarly disposition, and much preferred 
 browsing among the miscellaneous books piled 
 in a corner of the attic to playing the rough- 
 and-tumble games in which my school-mates 
 indulged. 
 
 My father was a stern, black-bearded man of 
 the ante-bellum type, such as you may see in any 
 
 5 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 old volume of daguerreotypes, and entirely un- 
 blessed with a sense of humor. I can even now 
 recall with a sinking of the heart the manner in 
 which, if I abjured my food, he would grasp me 
 firmly by the back of the neck and force my nose 
 toward the plate of Indian mush — which was the 
 family staple at supper — with the command, "Eat, 
 boy!" Sometimes he was kind to a degree which, 
 by a yawning of the imagination, might be re- 
 garded as affectionate, but this was only from a 
 sense of religious duty. At such times I was prone 
 to distrust him even more than at others. He be- 
 lieved in a personal devil with horns, a tail, and, 
 I suspect, red tights; and up to the age of ten I 
 shared implicitly in this belief. The day began 
 and ended with family prayers of a particularly 
 long-drawn-out and dolorous character. 
 
 My mother, on the other hand, was a pale 
 young woman of an undecided turn of mind with 
 a distinct taste for the lighter pleasures that she 
 was never allowed to gratify. I think she secretly 
 longed for the freedom that had been hers under 
 the broader roof of her father's stately mansion on 
 High Street. But she had, I suspect, neither the 
 courage nor the force of mind to raise an issue, 
 and from sheer inertia remained faithful to the life 
 that she had elected. 
 
 6 
 

Artemas Quibble 
 
 My grandfather never had anything to do with 
 either of them and did not, so far as I am aware, 
 know me by sight, which may account for the fact 
 that when he died he bequeathed a moderate sum 
 in trust, "the proceeds to be devoted to the sup- 
 port and maintenance of the child of my daugh- 
 ter Sarah, at some suitable educational institution 
 where he may be removed from the influences of 
 his father." 
 
 Thus it was that at the age of nine I was sent 
 away from home and began an independent career 
 at the boarding-school kept by the Reverend Mr. 
 Quirk, at Methuen, Massachusetts. Here I re- 
 mained for seven years, in the course of which 
 both my parents died, victims of typhoid. I was 
 cast upon the world utterly alone, save for the 
 rather uncompromising and saturnine regard in 
 which I was held by old Mr. Toddleham, my 
 trustee. This antique gentleman inhabited a musty 
 little office, the only furniture in which consisted 
 of a worn red carpet, a large engraving of the Hon. 
 Jeremiah Mason, and a table covered with green 
 baize. I recall also a little bronze horse which he 
 used as a paper weight. He had a shrewd wrinkled 
 face of the color of parchment, a thin yellow wig, 
 and a blue cape coat. His practice consisted al- 
 most entirely in drawing wills and executing them 
 
 7 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 after the decease of their respective testators, whom 
 he inevitably outlived, and I think he regarded 
 me somewhat in the light of a legal joke. He 
 used to send for me twice a year, for the sole pur- 
 pose, I believe, of ascertaining whether or not I 
 was sufficiently nourished at Quirk's establishment. 
 On these occasions he would take me to lunch with 
 him at the Parker House, where he invariably or- 
 dered scallops and pumpkin pie for me and a pint 
 of port for himself. 
 
 On my departure he would hand me solemnly 
 two of the pieces of paper currency known as "shin 
 plasters," and bid me always hold my grandfather's 
 memory in reverence. On one of these occasions, 
 when he had laid me under a similar adjuration, 
 I asked him whether he had ever heard of the 
 man who made his son take off his hat whenever 
 he met a pig — on the ground that his father had 
 made his money in pork. He stared at me very 
 hard for a moment with his little twinkling eyes 
 and then suddenly and without any preliminary 
 symptoms exploded in a cackle of laughter. 
 
 "Goddamme," he squeaked, "I wish your 
 gran'ther could a' heard y' say that!" 
 
 Then without further explanation he turned and 
 made his way down School Street and I did not 
 see him for another six months. 
 
 8 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 My life at Quirk's was a great improvement over 
 the life I had led at home in Lynn. In the first 
 place I was in the real country, and in the second I 
 had the companionship of good-natured, light- 
 hearted people. The master himself was of the 
 happy-go-lucky sort who, with a real taste for the 
 finer things of literature and life, take no thought 
 for the morrow or indeed even for the day. He 
 was entirely incapable of earning a living and had 
 been successively an actor, a lecturer, a preacher, 
 and a pedagogue. He was a fine scholar of Latin 
 and could quote Terence, Horace, and Plautus in a 
 way that could stir the somnolent soul even of a 
 school-boy. His chief enemy, next to laziness, was 
 drink. He would disappear for days at a time into 
 his study, and afterward explain that he had been 
 engaged in the preparation of his magnum opus, 
 which periodically was just on the point of going 
 to press. 
 
 During these interludes the school was run by 
 Mrs. Quirk, a robust, capable, and rosy English- 
 woman, who had almost as much learning as her 
 husband and ten times as much practical ability. 
 There were twelve boys in the school, for each of 
 whom the Quirks received the modest sum of two 
 hundred and seventy-five dollars a year. In ex- 
 change for this they gave board, lodging, and tui- 
 
 9 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 tion. Each of us received separate instruction — 
 or as Quirk expressed it "individual attention" — 
 and excellent instruction it was. We arose at six, 
 breakfasted at six-thirty, and helped around the 
 house until eight, when our studies began. These 
 continued until twelve, at which time we had 
 dinner. After that we were free until two-thirty, 
 when we resumed our labors until four. 
 
 Quirk was a tall, lank, loose-jointed man, with 
 long black hair that lay well over his Byronic col- 
 lar. He had a humorous eye and a cavernous 
 mouth that was always twisting itself into grimaces, 
 alternately side-splitting and terrifying. On occa- 
 sions he would use the birch — and very thoroughly 
 too, as I have reason to remember — but he ruled us 
 rather by a sort of free and easy camaraderie than 
 by fear of authority. For though he dressed like a 
 clergyman, he always smelled strongly of stale cigar 
 smoke, and his language at times was more forci- 
 ble than is generally expected of a wearer of the 
 cloth. 
 
 I dwelt with the Quirks, winter and summer, 
 until I was able to pass my examinations for Har- 
 vard, which I did in the summer of 187 1. My al- 
 lowance had been gradually increased to meet my 
 new expenses, and I entered the freshman class 
 with an income sufficient to permit me to dress 
 
 10 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 suitably and enjoy myself in such simple ways as 
 were in vogue among the collegians. But coming 
 as I did, alone, from a small boarding-school, 
 proved to be a great disadvantage, for I had all 
 my friends to make after my arrival and I had 
 neither the means nor the address to acquire ready- 
 made social distinction. Thus it happened that I 
 was very lonely during my first years in Cambridge; 
 missed the genial companionship of my old friends, 
 the Quirks, and seized every opportunity that 
 offered for going back to Methuen. 
 
 I had grown into a tall, narrow-shouldered 
 youth, with a high-arched nose set between rather 
 pale cheeks, and prominent ears. Though I could 
 hardly flatter myself into the belief that I was 
 handsome, I felt that my appearance had some- 
 thing of distinction and that I looked like a gentle- 
 man. I affected coats with long tails and a some- 
 what dandified style of waistcoat and neck-cloth, 
 as well as a white beaver, much in favor among 
 the "bloods" of those days. But this todk most 
 of my available cash and left me little to expend 
 in treating my fellow students at the tavern or in 
 enjoying the more substantial culinary delights 
 of the Boston hotels. Thus though I made no 
 shabby friends I acquired few genteel ones, and I 
 began to feel keenly the disadvantages of a lean 
 
 II 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 purse. I was elected into none of the clubs, nor 
 did I receive any invitations to the numerous balls 
 given in Boston or even to those 'in Cambridge. 
 This piqued my pride, to be sure, but only inten- 
 sified my resolution to become a man of fashion 
 on my own account. If my classmates could get 
 on without me I felt that I could get on without 
 them, and I resolutely declined to appreciate any 
 social distinction that might artificially exist be- 
 tween a man born in Salem and one born in Lynn, 
 although I now understand that such distinction 
 exists, at least so far as Boston society is con- 
 cerned. Consequently as time went on and I 
 could achieve prominence in no other way, I sought 
 consolation for the social joys denied me by my 
 betters by acquiring the reputation of a sport. I 
 held myself coldly aloof from the fashionable men 
 of my class and devoted myself to a few cronies 
 who found themselves in much the same position 
 as my own. In a short time we became known as 
 the fastest set in college, and our escapades were 
 by no means confined to Cambridge, but were car- 
 ried on with great impartiality in Boston and the 
 neighboring towns. 
 
 We organized a club, which we called the Cock 
 and Spur, and had a rat-pit and cock-fights in the 
 cellar, on which occasions we invited out young 
 
 12 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 actors from the Boston Museum and Howard Ath- 
 enaeum stock companies. These in turn pressed 
 us with invitations to similar festivities of their 
 own, and we thus became acquainted with the 
 half-world of the modern Athens, which was much 
 worse for us, I trow, than would have been the 
 most desperate society of our college contempo- 
 raries. There was a club of young actors that 
 we used to frequent, where light comedy sketches 
 and scenes from famous plays were given by the 
 members, and in due time several of us were ad- 
 mitted to membership. Of these I was one and 
 learned to do a turn very acceptably. On one 
 occasion I took a small part upon the Boston 
 Museum stage to fill the place made vacant by the 
 illness of a regular member of the cast — an illness 
 due in part to a carousal at the Cock and Spur 
 the night before, in which he had come out second 
 best. 
 
 We were a clever crew, however, and never 
 gave the faculty reason to complain of any failure 
 on our part to keep up in our studies. When 
 examination time came we hired an impecunious 
 coach and, retiring from the world, acquired in 
 five days knowledge that our fellows had taken 
 eight months to imbibe. It is true that the col- 
 lege at large viewed us with some disgust, but 
 
 13 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 we chose to regard this as mere envy. That we 
 were really objectionable must, however, be ad- 
 mitted, for we smoked cigars in the Yard, wore 
 sky-blue pantaloons and green waistcoats, and 
 cultivated little side whiskers of the mutton-chop 
 variety; while our gigs and trotters were constantly 
 to be seen standing in Harvard Square, waiting 
 for the owners to claim them and take the road. 
 
 On Sundays, when the decorous youths of Bos- 
 ton had retired to Beacon Street for their midday 
 family feast of roast beef and baked beans, the 
 members of the Cock and Spur might be ob- 
 served in their white beaver hats driving country- 
 ward in chaises from the local livery stables, 
 seated beside various fair ladies from the Boston 
 stage or the less distinguished purlieus of the Cam- 
 bridge chop-houses. At noon these parties would 
 foregather at some country tavern and spend long 
 afternoons singing, drinking, and playing draw 
 poker and other games of chance; and occasion- 
 ally we would fight a main of cocks in some con- 
 venient pig-pen. 
 
 But this sort of a life took money, and I soon 
 found myself borrowing freely from my associ- 
 ates, most of whom were young fellows from other 
 States who had already come into their inheri- 
 tances and had gone to Harvard to get rid of 
 
 14 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 them under the most approved conditions. For 
 these I came to stand as a sort of sponsor, and was 
 looked up to by them as a devil of a fellow, for I 
 swore picturesquely and had a belligerently un- 
 pleasant manner that was regarded as something 
 quite out of the ordinary and distinguished. These 
 youthful spendthrifts I patronized and taught the 
 mysteries of a sporting life, and for a time it be- 
 came quite smart for a fellow to have gone on 
 one of "Quib's" notes. These notes, however, 
 increased rapidly in number, and before long 
 amounted to such a prodigious sum that they 
 gave me great uneasiness. 
 
 My habits had become extravagant and careless. 
 Having no money at all I took no heed of what I 
 did with that of others, for I hardly believed that 
 I could ever repay any of it. But I continued on 
 in my luxurious ways, well knowing that any 
 change in my mode of life would precipitate a 
 deluge. The safety of my position lay in owing 
 everybody, and in inducing each to believe that 
 he would be the one person ultimately or immedi- 
 ately to be paid. Moreover, I was not completely 
 spoiled and craved so ardently the enjoyments in 
 which I had indulged that I would never of myself 
 have had the will to abjure them. I had gained 
 that which I sought — reputation. I was accounted 
 
 15 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 the leader of the fast set — the "All Knights" as 
 we were known — and I was the envy and admira- 
 tion of my followers. But this bred in me an 
 arrogance that proved my undoing. It was neces- 
 sary for me to be masterful in order to carry off 
 the pose of leadership, but I had not yet learned 
 when to conciliate. 
 
 It so happened that in the spring of my junior 
 year my creditors became more than usually press- 
 ing, and at the same time a Jew by the name of 
 Poco Abrahams began to threaten suit on a note 
 of mine for two thousand dollars, which I had 
 discounted with him for seven hundred and fifty. 
 I made my usual demands upon my friends and 
 offered to do them the favor of letting them go on 
 some more of my paper, but without the usual 
 result. I then discovered to my annoyance that a 
 wealthy young fellow known as "Buck" de Vries, 
 who had considered himself insulted by something 
 that I had said or done, had been quietly spread- 
 ing the rumor that I was a sort of hocus-pocus 
 fellow and practically bankrupt, that my preten- 
 sions to fashion were ridiculous, and that I made 
 a business of living off other people. Incident- 
 ally he had gone the rounds, and, owing to the 
 rumors that he himself had spread, had succeeded 
 in buying up most of my notes at a tremendous 
 
 i6 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 discount. These he lost no time in presenting 
 for payment, and as they amounted to several 
 thousand dollars my hope of reaching a settle- 
 ment with him was small. In point of fact I was 
 quite sure that he wanted no settlement and de- 
 sired only revenge, and I realized what a fool I 
 had been to make an enemy out of one who might 
 have been an ally. 
 
 In this embarrassing situation I bethought me 
 of old Mr. Toddleham, and accordingly paid him 
 an unexpected visit at Barristers' Hall. It was a 
 humid spring day, and I recall that the birds were 
 twittering loudly in the maples back of the Pro- 
 bate OflSce. As befitted my station at the time of 
 year, I was arrayed in a new beaver and a par- 
 ticularly fanciful pair of rather tight trousers. 
 
 "Come in," squeaked Mr. Toddleham, and I 
 entered easily. 
 
 The old lawyer peered quizzically at me from 
 behind his square-boned spectacles. 
 
 "Oh," said he, "it's you. Master Quibble." 
 
 "The same, and your most obedient," I replied, 
 letting myself fall gracefully into a chair and cross- 
 ing my legs. 
 
 "You want money, I suppose.?" he continued, 
 after a few minutes, during which he inspected 
 my -get-up with some interest. 
 
 17 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 "Well," I commenced lightly, "the fact is I am 
 rather pressed. I thought if you could make me a 
 small advance out of my grandfather's legacy " 
 
 "Legacy! What legacy ?" he inquired. 
 
 "The legacy my grandfather left me." 
 
 "He left you no legacy," retorted the old gentle- 
 man. "Your grandfather, to whom you were 
 once so considerate as to refer in my presence as a 
 pig, left you no legacy. He directed that as long 
 as you seemed to deserve it I should spend a cer- 
 tain sum on your maintenance and education." 
 
 "Gad!" I cried. "That puts me in a nice 
 position!" 
 
 The old lawyer looked at me whimsically. 
 
 "My gay young man," he remarked finally, "the 
 only position you occupy is one into which you 
 have deliberately walked yourself. You come 
 here in your fine clothes and your beaver hat and — 
 excuse me — ^your whiskers, and you are surprised 
 that there is no money forthcoming to pay your 
 debts. Do not look astonished. I know and have 
 known for a long time of your debts. I have fol- 
 lowed your career with attention if not with edifi- 
 cation. Even for the son of a Baptist minister 
 you have done pretty well. However, life is life 
 and everybody is not the same. I sha'n't judge 
 you. I was a bit of a dog myself, although I don't 
 
 i8 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 look it now. But I can give you no more money 
 for game-cocks and cigars. It is time for you to 
 start in and earn your own living — if you can. At 
 the end of the term I will give you fifty dollars 
 and a ticket to New York, or one hundred dol- 
 lars and no ticket to an3rwhere. You will have to 
 kick out for yourself. So fine a fellow," he added, 
 "ought not to find it hard to get along. No doubt 
 you could find some rich girl to marry you and 
 support you in idleness." 
 
 I flushed with anger and sprang to my feet. 
 
 "I did not come here to be insulted!" I cried 
 furiously. 
 
 Old Mr. Toddleham chuckled apologetically. 
 
 "Tut, tut! No offence. You wont find earn- 
 ing your living such an easy matter. Have you 
 thought anything about what you'll do?" 
 
 "No," I answered, still indignant. 
 
 "How much do you owe?" 
 
 "About forty-eight hundred dollars." 
 
 "Damme!" muttered Mr. Tuckerman Toddle- 
 ham. "More than you could earn in the first five 
 years at the law!" 
 
 "See here," I interrupted, "do you seriously 
 mean that except for fifty dollars or so there is 
 nothing coming to me out of my grandfather's 
 estate ? Why, he was worth over a million!" 
 
 19 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 "That is exactly what I mean," he returned. 
 " He left you nothing except an allowance for your 
 education during your good ^behavior. He made 
 me the judge. I'm your trustee and I can't con- 
 scientiously let you have any more money to drink 
 up and gamble with. It's over and done with." 
 He rapped with an air of finality on his desk with 
 the little bronze horse. 
 
 "Who gets all the money?" I asked ruefully. 
 
 "The Society for the Propagation of Free Think- 
 ing," he answered, eyeing me sharply. 
 
 "I should think anything like that ought to be 
 contrary to law!" I retorted. "It ought to be a 
 crime to encourage atheism." 
 
 "It's a good devise under our statutes!" he 
 answered dryly. "I suppose your own faith is 
 beautiful enough, eh ?" 
 
 I did not respond, but sat twisting my hat in my 
 hands. Through the open window the soft damp 
 odors of spring came in and mingled with the dusty 
 smell of law books. So this was law! It sud- 
 denly struck me that I was taking the loss of 
 over a million dollars very resignedly. How did 
 I know whether the old boy was telling me the 
 truth or not ? He had drawn the will and got a 
 good fee for it. Certainly he was not going to 
 admit that there was anything invalid about it. 
 
 20 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 Why not study law — I might as well do that as 
 anything — and find out for myself? It was a 
 game worth playing. The stakes were a million 
 and the forfeit nothing. As I looked around 
 the little ofiice and at the weazened old barrister 
 before me, something of the fascination of the law 
 took hold of me. 
 
 "I rather think I should like to study law my- 
 self," I remarked. 
 
 He looked at me out of the corners of his bead- 
 like little eyes. 
 
 "And break your gran'ther's will, mebbe ?" he 
 inquired slyly. 
 
 "If I can," I retorted defiantly. 
 
 "That would be better than fighting cocks and 
 frittering your time away with play actors," said he. 
 
 "Mr. Toddleham," I returned, "if I will agree 
 to turn over a new leaf and give up my present 
 associates, will you continue my allowance and 
 let me stay on in Cambridge and study law?" 
 
 "If you will agree to enter my office and study 
 under my supervision — yes." 
 
 Once more I glanced around the little room. 
 Somehow the smell of decaying leather did not 
 have the same fascination that it had exercised a 
 few moments before. The setting sun sinking 
 over the Probate Office entered the window and 
 
 21 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 lingered on the stern old face of the Hon. Jeremiah 
 Mason over the fireplace. The birds twittered 
 gayly amid the branches by the window. Spring 
 called me to the open air, to the world outside, 
 to the future. 
 
 "Give me fifty dollars and my ticket to New 
 York," said I. 
 
 It had so happened that at the time of my visit 
 to Mr. Toddleham my credit, and consequently 
 my ready funds, had become so reduced that I 
 had only a dollar or two in my pocket. There- 
 fore the check for fifty dollars that the old gentle- 
 man had carefully drawn for me with his quill 
 pen and then had as carefully sanded over was 
 by no means inopportune. I took the shore-car 
 back over the Warren Avenue Bridge, depressed at 
 the thought of leaving the scene of my first ac- 
 quaintance with the world and at the same time 
 somewhat relieved, in spite of myself, by the con- 
 soling thought that I should no longer be worried 
 by the omnipresent anxiety of trying to escape 
 from duns and Jews. 
 
 Resolved to terminate my collegiate career in a 
 blaze of glory, I went the rounds of the college 
 buildings and bade all my friends to a grand cele- 
 bration at the Tavern, where, owing to the large 
 
 22 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 amount of trade that I had been able to swing to 
 it, my credit was still good. Even "Buck" de 
 Vries was not forgotten, and without a suggestion 
 of my contemplated departure I entertained my 
 colleagues royally with a bowl of punch brewed 
 after a celebrated Cambridge recipe, which in a 
 decadent age spoke eloquently of the glories of 
 the past. I was in the midst of a highly colored 
 speech — during which I must confess de Vries had 
 eyed me in a somewhat saturnine manner — when 
 the proprietor tapped me on the shoulder and said 
 that I was wanted outside. Excusing myself I 
 stepped to the door only to be unexpectedly con- 
 fronted by the local sheriff, who apologetically in- 
 formed me that he held a warrant of attachment 
 for my worldly goods and another for the arrest 
 of my very worldly person. With admirable pres- 
 ence of mind I requested his patience until I should 
 find my coat, and returning via the buttery made 
 my escape from the premises by means of the rear 
 exit. Sic gloria transit ! That night I slept un- 
 der the roof of the amiable Quirk in Methuen, and 
 the day after reached New York, the city of my 
 future career. 
 
 23 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 MY arrival in the metropolis was unaccom- 
 panied by any newspaper comment or by 
 any particular excitement on the part of the inhabi- 
 tants. I simply landed, after a seven hours' jour- 
 ney from Boston, with a considerable quantity of 
 fine raiment — rather too fine, as I soon discovered, 
 for the ordinary uses of a serious-minded, working 
 youth — some fifty odd dollars, and a well-developed 
 bump of self-confidence that was supported by a 
 strong reserve resolution not to let anybody get 
 ahead of me. I had all the assurance of a man 
 double my years and an easy way of making ac- 
 quaintances that was destined to stand me in good 
 stead, but I do not wish to be understood as ad- 
 mitting that my manners were offensive or that I 
 was in any degree supercilious. I was simply a 
 good fellow who had always enjoyed the comrade- 
 ship of other good fellows, and as a result felt rea- 
 sonably sure that the rest of the world would treat 
 him kindly. Moreover, I could dissemble without 
 difficulty and, if occasion arose, could give the 
 
 24 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 impression of being a diffident and modest young 
 man, ready and anxious to order himself "lowly 
 and humbly before his betters." 
 
 Yet I had seen enough of the world to know that 
 unless a man puts a high appraisal upon his attain- 
 ments and ability no one else is likely to do so, 
 and that the public takes one, nine times out of 
 ten, at his own valuation. Coming to the clay 
 itself: I wore my hair rather long, with an appre- 
 ciable modicum of bear's grease well rubbed in, 
 side whiskers and white beaver, and carried a car- 
 pet bag on which was embroidered a stag's head in 
 yellow on a background of green worsted. And 
 the principal fact to be observed in this connection 
 is that, instead of creating a smile as I passed out 
 of the Grand Central Station, I was probably re- 
 garded as a rather smart and stylishly dressed 
 young man. 
 
 I had a card to some young actors in the city, 
 given me by my Thespian friends in Boston, and it 
 proved but a short trip on the horse-cars down 
 Fourth Avenue to the locality, near the Academy 
 of Music, then as now frequented by the fraternity. 
 I began my professional career, then, by taking 
 lodgings in an actors' boarding-house, and I am 
 free to confess that at that time I was undecided 
 whether to follow the bar or the boards. I have 
 
 25 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 since frequently observed that the same qualities 
 make for success in both, and had it not been for 
 the fact that I found my new friends somewhat 
 down at the heels and their rate of emolument ex- 
 ceedingly low, as well as for a certain little inci- 
 dent to be recounted shortly, I might well have 
 joined the group of future Booths and Forrests that 
 loitered along the near-by Rialto, looking for jobs 
 as Roman soldiers or footmen in some coming pro- 
 duction. 
 
 But the change from my well-appointed lodgings 
 in Cambridge and my luxurious surroundings at 
 the Cock and Spur to a distinctly shabby theat- 
 rical boarding-house, where the guests plainly 
 exhibited traces of the lack of proper ablutional 
 facilities and the hallways smelt of cabbage and 
 onions, was a distinct shock to my highly sen- 
 sitive tastes. However, my new acquaintances 
 proved warm-hearted and hospitable and did ev- 
 erything in their power to make me feel at my 
 ease, with the result that in spite of the cabbage 
 and the wooden slats that served as springs in my 
 bed — which nearly filled the rear hall bed-room I 
 had hired for one week at four dollars and twenty- 
 five cents — I resolved to postpone entering upon 
 an active career until I should know the city better 
 and have made a few friends. 
 
 26 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 Those of my new comrades who were lucky 
 enough to have employment did not rise in the 
 mornings until in the neighborhood of twelve 
 o'clock, and those who had no employment at 
 all followed their example. I thus found myself 
 adopting of necessity, as it were, the pleasant 
 practice of sauntering out on Broadway after a 
 one-o'clock breakfast, and of spending most of the 
 afternoon, evening, and following morning in or 
 about the same locality. We usually went to some 
 theatrical show on what was known as "paper," 
 and I afterward joined my actor friends at a res- 
 taurant, where we sang songs and told stories until 
 the gas-lamps were extinguished and gray dawn 
 crept over the house-tops. Downtown — into the 
 mysterious district of Wall Street — I did not, as 
 yet, go, and I might still be haunting the stage 
 entrances of the theatres had it not been for an 
 adventure in which I was an involuntary partic- 
 ipant. 
 
 It so happened that among my new acquaint- 
 ances was a careless, rattle-brained youth known 
 as Toby Robinson, who in spite of some histrionic 
 ability was constantly losing his job and always in 
 debt. He was a smooth-faced, rather stout, good- 
 natured-looking person, of the sort who is never 
 supposed to have done harm to anybody. Not 
 
 27 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 long before he had enjoyed a salary of fourteen 
 dollars per week, but having overslept several times 
 running he had been discharged for absence from 
 rehearsals. He had reached the limit of his re- 
 sources about the time of my arrival in the city 
 and had been in a most lugubrious frame of mind 
 when I first had the honor of his acquaintance. 
 Suddenly, however, he appeared one day with a 
 large roll of bills and enterd upon a period of lu- 
 brication and open-handed hospitality, in which 
 we all participated. During this season of good 
 cheer, as Toby and I were strolling down Broad- 
 way one afternoon, an ugly looking m^n who had 
 been following us stepped forward and, touching 
 my friend on the shoulder, said gruffly: 
 
 "The captain wants to see you." 
 
 The uttering of these cryptic syllables produced 
 a most extraordinary effect upon my companion, 
 for he turned deadly pale and the perspiration col- 
 lected in beads upon his temples, while he com- 
 menced to wring his hands and bemoan his ill 
 fortune. 
 
 "What is the trouble?" I inquired in great 
 solicitude. 
 
 The belligerent stranger, however, pushing be- 
 tween us, grasped Toby firmly by the arm and 
 marched him across the street, while I trailed be- 
 
 28 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 hind in the nature of a rear guard. I had already 
 begun to suspect that the ugly man was none other 
 than an officer of the law, and visions of myself 
 locked up in jail as a possible accomplice, although 
 innocent of wrong-doing, hovered in my mind. 
 Toby, giving every indication of guilt, slouched 
 along beside his captor, occasionally glancing 
 shamefacedly over his shoulder. 
 
 We were now nearing a police station, and our 
 companion, for the first time showing any sign of 
 personal interest, inquired if we had a lawyer. On 
 receiving a negative reply, the officer strongly rec- 
 ommended our immediately retaining counsel in 
 the person of one Gottlieb, who could be found 
 across the street from the police station and whose 
 precise whereabouts were made obvious by means 
 of a large sign about six feet by three and one-half 
 in size, reading as follows: 
 
 ABRAHAM GOTTLIEB'S 
 LAW OFFICE 
 
 NOTARY DEEDS 
 
 ItENTS COLLECTED 3AIL BONDS 
 
 INSURANCE GENERAL ADVICE 
 
 Without giving Toby time for consideration the 
 officer led us across the street and into the stuffy 
 little den occupied by the lawyer. 
 
 29 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 "Here's the gent I told you of," said he, nod- 
 ding in the direction of a hawk-faced Httle man 
 smoking a vile cigar, who was sitting with his feet 
 upon a table. "I'll leave you alone," he added, and 
 sauntering across the threshold, took his stand in 
 front of the window outside. 
 
 "Howdy," remarked Gottlieb, without arising 
 or removing his cigar. "Mike tells me you're 
 charged with obtaining money by false pretences." 
 
 "What!" gasped Toby, grasping the table for 
 support. "False pretences!" 
 
 "Flying a bit of bad paper, eh? Come now, 
 didn't you cash a check on the Cotton Exchange 
 Bank for about six hundred dollars when there was 
 only fifteen on deposit ? Don't try to bluflF me. I 
 know your sort. Lucky if you don't get ten 
 years." 
 
 "Save me!" wailed Toby. "Yes, I did cash a 
 check, come to think of it, for that amount, but 
 I had no idea my account had run so low." 
 
 Mr. Gottlieb spat into a sawdust box under the 
 table and winked with great deliberation. 
 
 "How much have you got left?" he inquired 
 indifferently. 
 
 Toby delved into his breeches and with trem- 
 bling hands produced a roll of bills still of some dig- 
 nity. Gottlieb stretched forth a claw, took them, 
 
 3° 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 placed them in his own pocket, and then swung his 
 feet to the floor with alacrity. 
 
 "Come on, my lads," he exclaimed, "and I'll 
 show you how we get the sinners off! All right, 
 Mike." And he led the way across the street and 
 into the station-house, where poor Toby was 
 searched and his pedigree taken down by the 
 clerk. It being at this time only about eleven in 
 the morning we were then conducted to the nearest 
 police court, where we found already in attendance 
 the unfortunate hotel keeper who had so unwisely 
 honored Toby's check. 
 
 "You rascal!" he shouted, struggling to reach 
 my unfortunate friend. "I'll show you how to 
 take other people's money! I'll put you where you 
 belong!" But the officers haled him back and he 
 was forced to restrain himself until he could tell his 
 story to the judge. This, it so happened, was not 
 to be for several hours, and during this interval 
 Gottlieb mysteriously vanished and as mysteriously 
 reappeared. It was half after three before the 
 judge announced that he would take up Toby's 
 case. Now, the judge looked even more of a ras- 
 cal than did Gottlieb, which was paying his Honor 
 a high compliment, and I suspect that it was for 
 this reason that the complainant had in the mean- 
 time sent round for his own lawyer to represent him. 
 
 31 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 We were now pushed forward and huddled into a 
 small space in front of the rail, while the lawyers 
 took their places upon the platform before us. 
 
 "Your Honor," began the lawyer for the hotel 
 man, "this fellow here has swindled my client out 
 of six hundred dollars by inducing him to cash a 
 worthless check." 
 
 "What have you to say, Mr. Gottlieb?" asked 
 the judge, 
 
 "Confession and avoidance, your Honor," re- 
 plied the attorney, with what appeared to me to 
 be the slightest possible drawing down of his right 
 eyelid. "Confession and avoidance. We admit 
 the fact, but we deny the imputation of guilt. My 
 client, Mr. Robinson, whose abilities as an actor 
 have no doubt hitherto given your Honor much 
 pleasure, was so careless as to forget the precise 
 amount of his bank account and happened to draw 
 a check for too large an amount. No one was 
 more surprised and horrified at the discovery than 
 he. And his intention is at once to reimburse in 
 full the complainant, whose action in having him 
 arrested seems most extraordinary and reprehen- 
 sible." 
 
 "Your Honor," interrupted the other lawyer, 
 "were there the slightest possibility of any such 
 outcome I should be glad to withdraw the charge; 
 
 32 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 but, as a matter of fact, this person is a worthless, 
 lazy fellow who has not a cent to his name, and 
 who induced my client to cash his check by lead- 
 ing him to believe that he was a man of substance 
 and position. No doubt he has spent the money, 
 and if not we might as well try to squeeze it out 
 of a stone. This fellow is guilty of a crime and he 
 ought to be punished. I ask your Honor to hold 
 him for the grand jury." 
 
 "Well, Mr. Gottlieb," remarked the judge, "tell 
 me, if you can, why I should not lock your client 
 up. Did he not falsely pretend, by requesting the 
 complainant to cash the check, that he had money 
 in the bank to meet it ?" 
 
 " By no means, your Honor," answered Gottlieb. 
 "The proffering of a check with a request for money 
 thereon is merely asking that the money be advariced 
 on the faith that the bank will honor the demand 
 made upon it. One who cashes a check does so 
 at his own risk. He has a full remedy at civil 
 law, and if the bank refuses to pay no crime has 
 been committed. This is not a case for the penal 
 law." 
 
 "That seems reasonable," said the judge, turn- 
 ing to the other. "How do you make this out a 
 crime ? What false pretence is there in merely 
 inviting another to cash a check?" 
 
 33 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 "Why," answered the attorney, "if I ask you to 
 cash a check for me, do I not represent that I have 
 a right to draw upon the bank for the amount set 
 forth ? If not, no one would ever cash a check. 
 The innocent person who advances the money has 
 the right to assume that the borrower is not offer- 
 ing him a bad check. There is a tacit represen- 
 tation that the check is good or that the maker has 
 funds in the bank to meet it." 
 
 "True — true!" nodded his Honor. "There is 
 something in what you say. What answer can 
 you make to that, Brother Gottlieb ?" 
 
 "I have a hundred good arguments," replied the 
 lawyer in a low tone. Then he added briskly: 
 "But the intent, your Honor! There can be no 
 crilne without a wrongful intent; and how can 
 there have been any such when my client honestly 
 believed that he had the money in the bank to 
 meet the check ?" 
 
 "But," cried the other, "he knew very well he 
 had not!" 
 
 "What evidence have you to that effect?" 
 queried Gottlieb. "You say so, to be sure, but I, 
 on the contrary, assert that he was perfectly honest 
 in the matter. Now, there is absolutely nothing 
 in this case to prove that he had any guilty knowl- 
 edge to the effect that his account was too low to 
 
 34 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 meet the draft in question. You have proven no 
 scienter whatever." 
 
 "Ah!" exclaimed the judge. "That is it! You 
 have shown no scienter!" 
 
 "Exactly!" cried Gottlieb — "no scienter at all." 
 
 "But how in the world could I have proved a 
 scienter?" wrathfully demanded the lawyer. "I 
 can't pry open the prisoner's skull and exhibit his 
 evil intent." 
 
 "No, but you could have shown that he knew 
 he had only a few dollars in the bank by the fact 
 that he had previously tried to cash a similar check 
 and that it had been returned. In any event, my 
 own mind is clear on the subject. You have shown 
 no scienter. The prisoner is discharged." 
 
 Poor Toby was so overcome by his unexpeaed 
 release that he began to stammer out incoherent 
 expressions of gratitude to the judge, such as 
 "Oh, thank you, your Honor! God bless your 
 Honor! Thank you, your Honor! I am an inno- 
 cent man, your Honor!" until Gottlieb, grasp- 
 ing him by the arm, dragged him away from the 
 rail and pushed him into the street. 7"he com- 
 plainant and his attorney indignantly followed us, 
 the former loudly deploring the way modern justice 
 was administered. Once outside Gottlieb shook 
 hands with Toby and told him if he were ever in 
 
 35 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 trouble again to look him up without fail. Toby 
 promised gratefully to do so, and the lawyer was 
 about to leave us and enter his office when it 
 occurred to me that he still had my friend's roll 
 of bills. 
 
 "But, Mr. Gottlieb," said I, "you are going to 
 return Mr. Robinson's money to him, are you not ?" 
 
 "What!" he exclaimed, growing frightfully 
 angry. "Give him back his money! I have no 
 money of his. It is he owes me money for keeping 
 him out of jail." 
 
 "But how about the roll of bills ?" I protested. 
 "You certainly do not intend to keep all of that ?" 
 
 "Certainly — that is my fee," he retorted calmly; 
 "and small enough it is too!" 
 
 "How much was there in that roll, Toby.'"' I 
 asked. 
 
 "About five hundred dollars," answered my 
 friend. "But let him keep it, by all means!" 
 
 "Why," I exclaimed, "he has done nothing to 
 earn such a fee. He merely got up and said that 
 you had no scienter — ^whatever that is. It is not 
 worth more than ten dollars!" 
 
 "Ten dollars!" shouted Gottlieb. "Ten dol- 
 lars ! Why scienter is one of the most complicated 
 and technical defences known to the law. Ten 
 dollars ! Scienter is worth a thousand ! Your ras- 
 
 36 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 cally friend got his money for nothing, didn't he ? 
 He's lucky to be outside the bars — for if I ever saw 
 a guilty man he's one. Get along, both of you, 
 or I'll call an officer!" 
 
 And with that Gottlieb slipped inside his office 
 and banged the door. 
 
 "Come along, Quib!" urged Toby; "there's a 
 great deal of truth in what he says. I don't be- 
 grudge it to him. It was well worth it to me." 
 
 "Lord!" I groaned. "Five hundred dollars 
 just for scienter. If that is the law, then I'll turn 
 lawyer." 
 
 And with that idea growing more firmly each 
 moment in my mind I returned to the boarding- 
 house with my friend. 
 
 37 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 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 am- 
 bition 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 ap- 
 prenticeship, and indeed the law required that 
 were I not a graduate of a law school I must have 
 worked as a clerk for two years before I could be 
 
 38 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 man- 
 ner 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. In- 
 deed 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 pro- 
 fession 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 inexpres- 
 sible sensation of relief, of protection, even of 
 
 39 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 luxury. Here, at any rate, even in an actors' 
 boarding-house, I was independent, as good as any- 
 body, 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 win- 
 dow. 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 so 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?" 
 40 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 I was somewhat taken aback by this inquiry, not 
 seeing at the moment its immediate relation to the 
 business in hand, but for want of a better answer 
 I repHed 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 producd 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 gra- 
 tuitously 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 
 
 41 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 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 an- 
 swered smiling. 
 
 "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'U 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, fit's terrible to think what that 
 poor injured young man will suffer. To-day he 
 
 42 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 hope- 
 less 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 
 
 43 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 Haight & Foster, for instance. He gets half a 
 dozen twenty-thousand-dollar fees every year, and 
 all he has is a 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 Gottheb 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 an introduc- 
 tion. 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 
 
 44 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 dis- 
 honesty. 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 y6ur chief asset, or, 
 on the other hand, so crooked that your very dis- 
 honesty 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. 
 
 45 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 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 veiy 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 deference, "I 
 have called on you at the suggestion of my guardian 
 
 46 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 and trustee, Mr. Tuckerman Toddleham, of Bar- 
 risters' 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 'Toddle- 
 ham 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 Shel- 
 ley'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 persons. 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 
 
 47 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 again and chuckled still more. Finally he laid 
 aside all modesty and hugged himself with de- 
 light. 
 
 "I see that you are a man oi 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 Toddle- 
 ham who had written the book on Perpetuities was 
 an entirely diflFerent 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 irregu- 
 lar. But I was started at last and belonged some- 
 where. No longer Was it necessary for me to 
 wander about the streets looking for a place to 
 
 48 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 pre- 
 text 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 rea- 
 soned that there must be several hundred thousand 
 people in the city who had no acquaintance with 
 lavvyers and would be as ready to consult one as 
 another. Reputable lawyers did not advertise, to 
 
 49 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 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. Ac- 
 cordingly I had a few cards neatly printed on 
 glossed board reading: 
 
 MR. ARTEMAS 
 
 QUIBBLE 
 
 BROADWAY | 
 
 OF 
 
 
 HAIGHT & FOSTER 
 
 ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW 
 
 lO WALL STREET 
 
 NEW YORK CITY 
 
 Contracts 
 Mortgages 
 Tax Matters 
 General Advice 
 
 The Haight & Foster end of the card was done 
 in very heavy type, while my own name was com- 
 paratively 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 ink- 
 pot. 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 
 
 50 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 im- 
 mediate 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 barkeep- 
 ers 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 per- 
 sons. It was very necessary for me to net ten dol- 
 lars 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 
 
 51 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 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, al- 
 though 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 surro- 
 gates' 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 
 
 52 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 im- 
 possible task for one of my lack of legal education. 
 I carefully engrossed the will in long hand on fresh 
 foolscap, ornamentd it with seals and ribbons and, 
 returning to the hotel, superintended its execution. 
 My client asked me 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 techincal 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 captial of one 
 hundred and fifty dollars I was in a position to 
 
 53 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 put one of my schemes into practice, and accord- 
 ingly I drew up with great care the following instru- 
 ment, copies of which I had struck off by a theatri- 
 cal 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 legal matters that may 
 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 pro- 
 cured 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 
 
 54 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 dis- 
 continue with those who seemed likely to prove un- 
 remunerative. 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 proba- 
 bilities 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, con- 
 ductors, 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, 
 
 55 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 so that the money involved caused me no uneasiness. 
 Besides, I had fifty dollars left in my pocket. Mean- 
 time I spent my evenings in my office reading Black- 
 stone 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, an actress who wanted a separation from her 
 husband, a bartender who was charged with as- 
 sault 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 re- 
 ceive half of any sum recovered in consideration 
 for seeing that they received proper legal advice 
 and service, and each of them I sent over to Coun- 
 sellor 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 hun- 
 dred dollars, and we divided six hundred between 
 
 56 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 dol- 
 lars, which left me a gross profit of four hundred 
 dollars. With this I secured fifty new contracts, 
 and after paying the second instalments 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 learn- 
 ing 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 divi- 
 sion 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 
 
 57 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 his friends, to whom my assistant had made ap- 
 pUcation, 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 excel- 
 lently 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 down- 
 town. 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 conduct- 
 
 58 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 ing 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 busi- 
 ness 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 in- 
 sistent note of established respectability, the sup- 
 pressed voices of its young men, their obvious po- 
 liteness to each other and deference to clients, their 
 horror at anything vulgar, the quiet, the irritating 
 quiet, Mr. Wigger's red wig — he was the engross- 
 ing 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 inter- 
 est only on account of the legal points involved. 
 When I was there, filing papers in their dusty pack- 
 ages, I used to feel as though I were fumbling 
 among the dust of clients long since dead and gone. 
 The place stifled and depressed me. I longed for 
 
 59 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 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 mem- 
 ber 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 cup of coffee in the cafe 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 per- 
 son. 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 
 
 60 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 cli- 
 ent 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 KELLY 
 
 AN ACTOR 
 
 As may well be supposed, my professional career 
 uptown was vastly more entertaining than my ex- 
 periences 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 honora- 
 rium of a dollar a month, a constantly increasing 
 
 6i 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 percentage of criminal or semi-criminal business 
 came to the office. Of course there was no better 
 criminal lawyer than Gottlieb in the city, and be- 
 fore long the criminals outnumbered our civil cli- 
 ents. 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 dis- 
 like 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 dol- 
 lars every four weeks for this purpose was no 
 trifling matter. Accordingly I decided to try let- 
 ting them go for a month or so, but business fell 
 off to such an alarming extent that I almost imme- 
 diately resumed the contract system, merely re- 
 ducing its proportions. 
 
 In addition to our " dollar-a-monthers," as we 
 called them, Gottlieb employed half a dozen pro- 
 fessional "runners," whose sole occupation it was 
 to hunt down unfortunate persons injured acci- 
 dentally 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 
 
 62 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 in- 
 sensible 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 ceil- 
 ing directly above his head, reading: 
 
 GO TO 
 
 Levy & Finklestein 
 
 attoeneys-at-law 
 
 WE GET YOU MONEY! 
 
 TRY 
 EINSTEIN & GOLDBERG 
 
 IN THE B-DSINESS 30 YEARS 
 
 SOLOMONS & MEYER 
 ATTORNEYS 
 
 CAN GET YOU 
 
 ;^5ooo ^10,000 
 
 FOR A LEG FOR A LIVER 
 
 MOSES BLOOM 
 
 THK HONEST LAWYER 
 
 SAMUEL SHARP 
 Counsellor-at-Law 
 
 "Ah!" he murmured, rubbing his eyes and 
 turning to the nurse; "I thought I was in some 
 
 63 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 strange place, but I see that all my friends have 
 been to call already!" 
 
 Our criminal business, however, was so exten- 
 sive 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 crim- 
 inal 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 an- 
 swered. 
 
 "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, 
 
 64 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 each per year you might make a good 
 thing of it." 
 
 " But how would we get our scheme going ?" in- 
 quired 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 phi- 
 losophy: 
 
 Innocent men, as well as guilty, are frequently ar- 
 rested for violating the law. This costs money. Law- 
 yers 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 suc- 
 cessful advertising, and with this in view I per- 
 suaded 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 
 
 65 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 some ofFence, and Gottlieb as naturally succeeded 
 in getting him off, with the as 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 Gott- 
 lieb 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 be- 
 come 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 
 
 66 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 for robbery and assault, sixteen for theft, and five 
 for murder. These latter cases took all of Gott- 
 lieb'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 re- 
 turned 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 acknowl- 
 edged 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 all by himself." 
 
 And in this I with some regret agreed with him. 
 
 67 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 AS I have already taken some pains to indicate, 
 I was fully persuaded of the practical value 
 of a professional connection with a legal firm of so 
 eminent a standing as that of Messrs. Haight & 
 Foster, and for this reason the reader may easily 
 appreciate the shock with which I received the in- 
 formation that my presence was no longer desired 
 in the office. 
 
 Mr. Haight had unexpectedly sent me word that 
 I was wanted in the library and I had obeyed his 
 summons without a suspicion that my career as a 
 civil attorney was to be abruptly terminated. As 
 I closed the door behind me I saw the old lawyer 
 standing near the window, his spectacles poked 
 above his eyebrows and his forehead red with 
 indignation. Between the thumb and forefinger 
 of his left hand he held a card. 
 
 " So," he exclaimed, vainly trying to appear col- 
 lected, "I find that my firm has been conducting 
 an uptown office for criminal business! This is 
 one of your cards, I believe?" 
 
 68 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 He tossed it from him as if it were infected with 
 some virulent legal disease, and I saw that it was 
 one of the unfortunate cards that I had had printed 
 before forming my partnership with Gottlieb. It 
 was no use denying anything. 
 
 "Yes," I answered, as quietly as I could, "it is 
 one of my cards." 
 
 "I am also informed," he continued, his voice 
 trembling with suppressed wrath, "that while you 
 have been masquerading as a student in this office 
 you have been doing a police-court law business 
 in association with a person named Gottlieb." 
 
 I turned white, yet made no traverse of his indict- 
 ment. I was going to be kicked out, but I felt 
 that I could at least make my exit with a dignified 
 composure. 
 
 "Young man, you are no longer wanted here," 
 continued Mr. Haight with acerbity. "You have 
 found your own level without assistance and you 
 will no doubt remain there. You obtained your 
 position in this office by means of false pretences. 
 I do not know who you really are or whence you 
 really come, but I have no doubt as to where you 
 will eventually go. This office does not lead in 
 the right direction. You ought to be locked up! 
 Get out!" 
 
 I went. 
 
 69 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 Glib as I was in the defence of others I found it 
 difficult to argue in my own behalf. At any rate, 
 it would have availed nothing. I had been tried, 
 convicted, and sentenced in my absence, and it 
 was vain to hope for pardon. There is something 
 in righteous indignation that inevitably carries 
 respect with it. I fully sympathized with Mr. 
 Haight. I had cheated and outraged his firm and 
 I knew it. I had no excuse to offer and he was 
 entitled to his burst of excoriation. Morally I felt 
 sure that the worm that had worked deepest into 
 his bone was the fact that my guardian, whose 
 name, as the reader may recall, I had made use 
 of as an introduction, had not in fact written 
 "Tottenham on Perpetuities" at all. 
 
 Thus I passed out of the office of Haight & 
 Foster much as I had slipped in — quite unostenta- 
 tiously. All hope of success along the slow and 
 difficult lines of legitimate practice faded from my 
 mind. Whether I willed it or not, as a criminal 
 attorney I was destined to make my bread. 
 
 There was now no reason why Gottlieb and I 
 should any longer conceal our partnership, and we 
 decided, therefore, to go into things on a much 
 larger scale than theretofore, and hired a suite of 
 offices on Centre Street, near the Tombs, where we 
 could be within easy reach of the majority of our 
 
 70 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 clients. A sign some forty feet long and three feet 
 wide ran along the entire front of the building, 
 bearing the names Gottlieb & Quibble. Our own 
 offices were in the rear, the front rooms being 
 given over to clerks, runners, and process servers. 
 A huge safe bought for a few dollars at an auc- 
 tion stood in the entrance chamber, but we used 
 it only as a receptacle for coal, its real purpose 
 being simply to impress our clients. We kept but 
 few papers and needed practically no books; what 
 we had were thrown around indiscriminately, upon 
 chairs, tables — even on the floor. I do not recall 
 any particular attempt to keep the place clean, and 
 I am sure that the windows were never washed. 
 But we made money, and that was what we were 
 out for — and we made it every day — every hour; 
 and as we made it we divided it up and put it in 
 our pockets. Our success from the start seemed 
 in some miraculous way to be assured, for my 
 partner had, even before I knew him, established 
 a reputation as one of the keenest men at the 
 criminal bar. 
 
 As time went on our offices were thronged with 
 clients of all sexes, ages, conditions, and nation- 
 alities. The pickpocket on his way out elbowed 
 the gentlewoman who had an erring son and sought 
 our aid to restore him to grace. The politician 
 
 71 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 and the actress, the polite burglar and the Wall 
 Street schemer, the aggrieved wife and stout old 
 clubman who was "being annoyed," each awaited 
 his or her turn to receive our opinion as to their 
 respective needs. Good or bad they got it. Usu- 
 ally it had little to do with law. Rather it was 
 sound, practical advice as to the best thing to 
 be done under the circumstances. These circum- 
 stances, as may be imagined, varied widely. What- 
 ever they were and however little they justified 
 apprehension on the part of the client we always 
 made it a point at the very outset to scare the latter 
 thoroughly. "Conscience doth make cowards of 
 us all." But a lawyer is a close second to con- 
 science when it comes to coward-making; in fact, 
 frightening people, innocent or guilty, became to a 
 very large extent our regular business. 
 
 The sinners most of them live in daily terror of 
 being found out and the virtuous are equally fear- 
 ful of being unjustly accused. Every one knows 
 how a breath of scandal originating out of nothing 
 can wither a family and drive strong men to des- 
 peration. The press is always ready to print 
 interesting stories about people, without inquir- 
 ing too closely into their authenticity. Curiously 
 enough we found that an invitation to call -at our 
 office usually availed to bring the most exemplary 
 
 72 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 citizens without delay. I can remember not more 
 than three who had the courage to refuse. Most 
 came, as it were, on the run. Others made a blufF 
 at righteous indignation. All, in the end, paid 
 up — and paid well. Our reputation grew, and 
 in the course of a few years the terror of us 
 stalked abroad through the city. 
 
 Our staff was well organized, however disor- 
 dered may have been the physical appearance of 
 our office. In the first place we had an agent in 
 every police court who instantly informed us 
 whenever any person was arrested who had suffi- 
 cient means to make it worth our while to come 
 to his assistance. This agent was usually the clerk 
 or some other official who could delay the pro- 
 ceedings in such a way as to give us time to appear 
 upon the scene. We also had many of the police 
 in our pay and made it a practice to reward liber- 
 ally any officer who succeeded in throwing us any 
 business. In this way defendants sometimes ac- 
 quired the erroneous idea that if they followed the 
 suggestion of the officer arresting them and em- 
 ployed us as their attorneys, they would be let off 
 through some collusion between the officer and 
 ourselves. Of course this idea was without foun- 
 dation, but it was the source of considerable finan- 
 cial profit to us, and we did little to counteract the 
 
 73 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 general impression that had gone abroad that 
 we "stood in" with the minions of the law and 
 were personce gratct to the judges of the poUce 
 courts. 
 
 After the telephone came into general use Gott- 
 heb employed it in many ingenious ways. He 
 even had an unconnected set of apparatus hanging 
 on the wall of the office, through which he used 
 to hold imaginary conversations with judges and 
 city officers for the benefit of clients who were in 
 search of " inflooence." It is a common weakness 
 of the layman to believe that more can be accom- 
 plished through pull than through the merit of 
 one's cause. Even litigants who have the right on 
 their side are quite as apt to desire an attorney 
 who is supposed to be "next" to the judge as are 
 those whose only hope is through judicial favor. 
 Gottlieb's relations to the lower magistrates were 
 in many instances close, but he professed to be on 
 the most intimate terms with all who wore the 
 ermine, whether in the police courts or on the 
 supreme bench. Time after time I have overheard 
 some such colloquy as the following. A client would 
 enter the office and after recounting his difficulties 
 or wrongs would cautiously ask Gottlieb if he 
 knew the judge before whom the matter would 
 come. 
 
 74 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 "Do I know him ?" my partner would cry. "I 
 lunch with him almost every day! Wait a minute 
 and I'll call him up." 
 
 Vigorously ringing the bell attached to the un- 
 connected instrument upon the wall Gottlieb would 
 indulge his fancy in some such dialogue as: 
 
 "Hello— hello! Is this Judge Nemo.? Oh, 
 hello, Jack, is it you ? Yes, it's me — Abe. Say, 
 I want to talk over a little matter with you before 
 I go into court. How about lunch .? Sure — any 
 time will suit me. One o'clock ? I'll be there. 
 Thanks. So long, old man. See you later!" 
 
 The client by virtue of this auricular demonstra- 
 tion of our friendly relations with the bench would 
 be instantly convinced that his success was as- 
 sured and that Gottlieb & Quibble were cheap at 
 any retainer they might choose to name. 
 
 For the most part the routine oiEce work fell to 
 me and Gottlieb attended to the court end of the 
 business. For there was no more adroit or experi- 
 enced trial attorney in the courts than my little 
 hook-nosed partner. Even down-town attorneys 
 with almost national reputations as corporation 
 lawyers would call him in as associate counsel in 
 important cases in which a criminal element was 
 involved. Thus we frequently secured big fees in 
 what Gottlieb was pleased to call legitimate prac- 
 
 75 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 tice, although I am inclined to believe that our 
 share was small compared with that of the civil 
 lawyers who had retained us. On one occasion 
 where Gottlieb had been thus called in, the regular 
 attorney of record, who happened to be a promi- 
 nent churchman, came to our office to discuss the 
 fee that should be charged. The client was a rich 
 man who had sued successfully for a divorce. 
 
 "How much, Mr. Gottlieb," inquired the attor- 
 ney, stroking his chin, "do you think would be a 
 fair amount to ask for our services ?" 
 
 My partner hesitated a moment and mentally 
 reviewed the length of time the case — a very sim- 
 ple one — ^had occupied. 
 
 "Do you think five thousand dollars would be 
 too much ?" he finally asked with some hesitation. 
 
 "Five!" cried the lawyer in astonishment. "It 
 should be twenty thousand — at the least!" 
 
 It is not my intention to give a history of the firm 
 of Gottlieb & Quibble, but rather a general de- 
 scription of the work of any criminal law office. Its 
 object is precisely the same as that of the best 
 offices where civil law is practised — ^that is, to make 
 money out of the client. But inasmuch as the 
 client who seeks the aid of a criminal attorney is 
 usually in dread of losing not merely money but 
 liberty, reputation, and perhaps life as well, he is 
 
 76 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 correspondingly ready to pay generously for any 
 real or fancied service on the part of the lawyer. 
 Thus the fees of a criminal practitioner — ^when the 
 client has any money — are ridiculously high, and 
 he usually gets sooner or later all that the client 
 has. Indeed, there are three golden rules in the 
 profession, of which the first has already been 
 hinted at — namely, thoroughly terrify your client. 
 Second, find out how much money he has and 
 where it is. Third, get it. The merest duffer can 
 usually succeed in following out the first two of 
 these precepts, but to accomplish the third requires 
 often a master's art. The ability actually to get 
 one's hands on the coin is what differentiates the 
 really great criminal lawyer from his inconspicu- 
 ous brethren. 
 
 The criminal attorney, therefore, whether he be 
 called to see his client at the Tombs or in the police 
 station, or is consulted in his own office, at once 
 informs the latter that he is indeed in a parlous 
 state. He demonstrates to him conclusively that 
 there exist but a few steps between him and the 
 gallows, or at the least State's prison, and that his 
 only hope lies in his procuring at once sufficient 
 money to — first, get out on bail; second, buy off 
 the witnesses; third, "fix" the police; fourth, 
 "square" the judge; and lastly, pay the lawyer. 
 
 77 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 Even where the prisoner has no money himself, his 
 family are usually ready to do what they can to get 
 him off, in order to save themselves from the dis- 
 grace of being related to a convict. It is not what 
 may actually happen to your client, but what he 
 thinks may happen, that makes him ready and 
 anxious to give up his money. Thus, the more 
 artistic the practitioner in painting the dire conse- 
 quences which will result if the family of the of- 
 fender does not come to his rescue the quicker and 
 larger will be the response. Time also is neces- 
 sary to enable the ancestral stocking to be grudg- 
 ingly withdrawn from its hiding-place and its 
 contents disgorged, or to allow the pathetic repre- 
 sentations of his nearer relatives to work upon the 
 callous heart of old Uncle John, who once held a 
 city office and has thus plenty of money. The 
 object of the lavpyer being to hang on to the client 
 until he has got his money, it follows that if the 
 latter is locked up in jail it is all the better for the 
 lawyer, unless it be expedient to let him out to 
 raise funds. Thus criminal attorneys are not, as a 
 rule, particularly anxious to secure the release of a 
 client from jail. Solitary confinement increases 
 his apprehension and discomfort and renders him 
 more complacent about paying well for liberty. 
 The English king who locked up the money- 
 
 78 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 lender and had one of his teeth drawn out each 
 day until he made the desired loan knew his busi- 
 ness. Once the fellow is out of jail — pflPt! He is 
 gone, and neither the place nor you know him 
 more. Very likely also he will jump his bail and 
 you will have to make good your bond. One client 
 in jail is worth two at large. 
 
 Lawyers exercise much invention in keeping 
 their clients under control. I recall one recent case 
 where a French chauffeur who had but just ar- 
 rived in this country was arrested for speeding. 
 The most that could happen to him would, in the 
 natural course of events, be a fine of fifteen or 
 twenty dollars. But an imaginative criminal prac- 
 titioner got hold of him in the police court and 
 drew such a highly colored picture of what might 
 happen to him that the Frenchman stayed in jail 
 without bail under an assumed name, raised some 
 three hundred dollars by means of a draft on Paris, 
 handed it over to his counsel, and finally after a 
 delay of two weeks was tried in the Special Ses- 
 sions, found guilty, and let go on a suspended 
 sentence. He is now looking for the lawyer with 
 a view to doing something to him that will inevi- 
 tably result in his own permanent incarceration. 
 
 Another practical distinction between civil and 
 criminal practitioners is that while the first are 
 
 79 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 concerned for the most part with the law, the sec- 
 ond are chiefly occupied with the facts. In civil 
 cases the lawyers spend most of their time in trying 
 to demonstrate that, even assuming their oppo- 
 nents' contentions as to the facts to be true, the 
 law is nevertheless in their own favor. Now, this 
 is a comparatively easy thing, since no one knows 
 what the law in most civil cases is — and in truth it 
 might as well be one way as the other. A noted 
 member of the supreme bench of the United 
 States is reported to have said that when he was 
 chief justice of one of the State courts, and he and 
 his confreres found themselves in a quandary over 
 the law, they were accustomed to send the sergeant- 
 at-arms for what they called "the implements of 
 decision" — a brace of dice and a copper cent. 
 Thus the weightest matters were decided without 
 difficulty. 
 
 Now, the taking of a purse out of a lady's reticule 
 does not present much confusion as a legal propo- 
 sition. It would be somewhat dilficult to persuade 
 a judge or a jury that picking a pocket is not a 
 crime. It is far easier to demonstrate that the 
 pocket was not picked at all. This is generally 
 only a question of money. Witnesses can easily 
 be secured to swear either that the lady had no 
 reticule, or that if she had a reticule it contained 
 
 80 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 no purse, or that some person other than the de- 
 fendant took the purse, or that she herself dropped 
 it, or that even if the prisoner took it he had no 
 criminal intent in so doing, since he observed that 
 it was about to slip from the receptacle in which 
 it was contained and intended but to return it to 
 her. Lastly, if put to it, that in fact the owner 
 was no lady, and therefore unworthy of credence. 
 Few persons realize how difficult it is for an out- 
 sider, such as an ordinary juryman, to decide an 
 issue of fact. A flat denial is worth a hundred 
 ingenious defences in which the act is admitted 
 but the attempt is made to explain it away. It is 
 this that gives the jury so much trouble in crimi- 
 nal cases. For example, in the case of the pick- 
 pocket the lawyers and the judge may know that 
 the complaining witness is a worthy woman, the 
 respectable mother of a family, and that the de- 
 fendant is a rascal. But each comes before the 
 jury presumably of equal innocence. She says he 
 did, he says he didn't. The case must be proven 
 beyond a reasonable doubt. Generally the de- 
 fendant's word, so far as the jury can see, is as 
 good as his accuser's. If there are other witnesses 
 it is usually not difficult, and certainly not impos- 
 sible, to show that they have poor eyesight, bad 
 memories, or are undesirable citizens in general. 
 
 8i 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 The criminal lawyer learns in his cradle never to 
 admit anything. By getting constant adjourn- 
 ments he wears out the People's witnesses, induces 
 others to stay away, and when the case finally 
 comes to trial has only the naked accusation of the 
 complainant to disprove. Or, to put it in more 
 technically correct fashion, the complainant has 
 only his own word wherewith to establish his case 
 beyond a reasonable doubt. A bold contradiction 
 is often so startling that it throws confusion into the 
 enemy's camp. 
 
 I once defended a worthy gentleman named 
 Cohen on a charge of perjury, alleged to have been 
 committed by him in a civil case in which he, as 
 defendant, denied that he had ever ordered a set 
 of stable plans from a certain architect. The lat- 
 ter was a young man of very small practice who had 
 an office but no clerks or draughtsmen. He cer- 
 tainly believed with the utmost honesty that my 
 client had come to his office, engaged him to de- 
 sign a stable, and approved an elaborate set of 
 plans that he had drawn. When it came to pay- 
 ing for them Mr. Cohen declined. The architect 
 brought suit, and at the trial swore to the dates 
 and places of the interviews between Cohen and 
 himself, and to all the surrounding circumstances 
 and details connected with the execution of the 
 
 82 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 plans in question. His lawyer expected that the de- 
 fendant would interpose the defence that the plans 
 were inferior, defective, or worthless. Not at all! 
 Mr. Cohen swore that he had never ordered the 
 plans and, in fact, had never seen the architect in his 
 life ! He alleged that until the suit was brought 
 he had never even heard of him, and that either 
 the architect was demented or a liar, or else some 
 other Cohen had given the order. The architect 
 and his lawyer were thunderstruck, but they had 
 no witnesses to corroborate their contentions, since 
 no one had ever seen Cohen in the other's office. 
 The jury disagreed and the architect in some way 
 secured Cohen's indictment for perjury. But dur- 
 ing the criminal trial, at which I defended him, Mr. 
 Cohen calmly persisted in his denial that he had 
 ever enjoyed the honor of the architect's acquaint- 
 ance, and after two prosecutions, in each of which 
 the jury hopelessly disagreed, the indictments 
 against him were dismissed. From this it may 
 easily be inferred that no fact is too patent to be 
 denied. Frequently the more heroic the denial the 
 greater its verisimilitude to truth. The jury feel 
 that no prisoner would deny a fact that it would 
 be much easier to explain away — and believe him. 
 I once represented an Italian called The King of 
 Mulberry Street, who was charged with having de- 
 
 83 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 liberately shot in the head and killed a respectable 
 dealer in olive-oil against whom he held no grudge 
 whatsoever. This King was just an egotistic little 
 man who liked notoriety and admiration. He was 
 wont to refer to himself simply as "The Bravest 
 Man," without reference to time or place — ^just 
 "The Bravest Man." He was accustomed to 
 demonstrate his bravery by shooting inoffensive 
 people whenever the idea seized him. He never 
 killed anybody save quiet and law-abiding fellow 
 citizens who made no resistance, and the method 
 he selected was to shoot them through the head. 
 He seemed to feel that it was essential to his dignity 
 thus to execute at least one human being every six 
 months, and the extraordinary feature of his his- 
 tory was that he had never been convicted. 
 
 The case that I was called upon to defend was 
 this : Not having killed anybody for nearly a year 
 and fearing to jeopardize his dual title of King of 
 Mulberry Street and The Bravest Man, he put a 
 forty-four calibre pistol in his pocket, donned his 
 Sunday clothes and took a walk. The thorough- 
 fare was crowded, the day bright and fair, the 
 time twelve o'clock noon. Presently the oil mer- 
 chant approached and The King, first glancing 
 about him to make sure that he had a "gallery," 
 went up to him, placed the pistol at his head and 
 
 84 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 fired. He was immediately arrested and indicted 
 for murder. 
 
 Now, twenty witnesses had seen him fire the fatal 
 shot. Yet there was not the slightest reason in the 
 world why he should have done such a thing. 
 Upon the trial my client insisted on simply denying 
 that he had done anything of the kind. I had 
 naturally assumed that he would either claim that 
 the shooting had been accidental or that he had 
 fired in self-defence, after he had first been at- 
 tacked by the deceased. But no — he had had no 
 pistol, did not know the man, and had not killed 
 him. Why should he have killed him ? he in- 
 quired. No one could answer the question, least 
 of all the jury. The twenty witnesses were posi- 
 tive that he had done so, but he was equally 
 positive that he had not. No one could offer the 
 slightest explanation of the deed — if it had in fact 
 taken place. The jury puzzled over the case for 
 hours, at one time, I am informed, being on the 
 point of acquitting the prisoner for lack of proof 
 of any motive. They reasoned, with perfect logic, 
 that it was almost if not quite as improbable that 
 the defendant should in broad daylight on a public 
 street have shot down a man against whom he had 
 not the slightest grudge as that twenty common- 
 place citizens should be mistaken as to what they 
 
 85 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 had seen. Whether they were aided in reaching a 
 verdict by "the implements of decision" I do not 
 know, but in the end they found my client guilty 
 and in due course he paid the penalty, as many 
 another king has done, upon the scaffold. The 
 plain fact was that The King was a "bravo," who 
 took a childish and vain pride in killing people. 
 He killed for the love of killing, or rather for the 
 egotistic satisfaction of being talked of as a killer. 
 At any rate, there are many like him. While his 
 defence was unsuccessful, he came near enough to 
 escaping to point out the value of a bold denial in a 
 criminal case. 
 
 Our clients consisted, for the most part, of three 
 clearly defined classes of persons: Criminals, their 
 victims, and persons involved in marital or quasi- 
 marital difficulties. These last furnished by far 
 the most interesting quota of our business, and, did 
 not professional confidence seal my lips, I could re- 
 count numerous entertaining anecdotes concerning 
 some of what are usually regarded as New York's 
 most respectable, not to say straight-laced, house- 
 holds. A family skeleton is the criminal lawyer's 
 strongest ally. Once you can locate him and drag 
 him forth you have but to rattle his bones ever so 
 little and the paternal bank account is at your 
 mercy. New York is prolific of skeletons of this 
 
 86 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 generic character, and Gottlieb had a magnificent 
 collection. When naught else was doing we used 
 to stir them up and revive business. Over this feat- 
 ure of the firm's activities I feel obliged, however, 
 from a natural feeling of delicacy, to draw a veil. 
 Our function usually consisted in offering to see 
 to it that a certain proposed action, based on cer- 
 tain injudicious letters, should be discontinued 
 upon the payment of a certain specified sum of 
 money. These sums ranged in amount from five 
 to twenty thousand dollars, of which we retained 
 only one-half. I understand that some lawyers 
 take more than this percentage, but for such I 
 have only contempt. A member of a learned and 
 honorable profession should be scrupulous in his 
 conduct, and to keep for one's self more than half 
 the money recovered for a client seems to me to be 
 bordering on the unethical. But perhaps I am 
 hypersqueamish. 
 
 Of course we had a great deal of the ordinary 
 "knock-down-and-drag-out" variety of assault, 
 robbery, theft, and homicide cases. Most of these 
 our clerks attended to, but the murder cases Gott- 
 lieb defended in person, and in this he was so sin- 
 gularly successful that there was hardly a cele- 
 brated trial in which he was not retained in some 
 capacity or other. For he was an adept in all those 
 
 87 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 little arts that make a jury feel well disposed tow- 
 ard a lawyer, and as a word artist he was unsur- 
 passed. Gottlieb could, I believe, have wrung tears 
 from a lump of pig iron, and his own capacity to 
 open the floodgates of emotion was phenomenal. 
 He had that rare and priceless gift shared by some 
 members of the theatrical profession of being able 
 to shed real tears at will. His sobs and groans were 
 truly heart-rending. This, as might be expected, 
 rendered him peculiarly telling in his appeals to the 
 jury, and he could frequently set the entire panel 
 snivelling and wiping their eyes as he pictured the 
 deserted home, the grief-stricken wife, and the 
 starving children of the man whom they were asked 
 to convict. These unfortunate wives and children 
 were an important scenic feature in our defence, 
 and if the prisoner was unmarried Gottlieb had 
 little diificulty in supplying the omission due to 
 such improvidence. Some buxom young woman 
 with a child at the breast and another toddling by 
 her side could generally be induced to come to court 
 for a few hours for as many dollars. They were 
 always seated beside the prisoner, but Gottlieb was 
 scrupulous to avoid any statement that they he- 
 longed to the client. If the jury chose to infer as 
 much that was not our fault. It was magnificent 
 to hear (from the wings) Gottlieb sum up a case, 
 
 88 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 his hand, in which was concealed a pin, caressing 
 the youngest little one. 
 
 "Think, gentlemen, of the responsibility that 
 rests upon you in rendering this woman a widow 
 and depriving this poor innocent babe of a father's 
 protecting love!" 
 
 Here Gottlieb would hiccough out a sob, 
 sprinkle a few tears upon the counsel table, and 
 gently thrust the pin into the infant's anatomy. 
 Sob from Gottlieb — opportune wail from the 
 baby. Verdict — ^not guilty. 
 
 There was a certain class of confidence men for 
 whom we soon became the regular attorneys. 
 They were a perennial source of delight as well as 
 profit, and much of my time was given up to the 
 drafting of circulars and advertisements for the 
 sale of stock in such form that, whereas they con- 
 tained no actual misstatement of an existing fact, 
 they nevertheless were calculated to stimulate in 
 the most casual reader an irresistible desire to sell 
 all that he had and invest therein. 
 
 Originally the dealers in valueless securities did 
 not take the trouble to purchase any properties 
 but merely sold their stock and decamped with the 
 proceeds. Of course such conduct was most ill- 
 advised and unnecessary. It was obviously crim- 
 inal to sell stock in a concern that has.no existence, 
 
 89 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 and several of my clients having been convicted 
 of grand larceny, for this reason I took it upon 
 myself to advise the others actually to purchase 
 lands, mines, or other property and issue their 
 stock iaigainst it. In this way their business be- 
 came absolutely legitimate — as strictly honest and 
 w^ithin the law as any of the stock-jobbing con- 
 cerns of the financial district. To be sure, the mine 
 need not be more than the mere beginning of a 
 shaft, if even that; the oil-well might have ceased 
 to flow; the timber land might be only an acre or 
 so in extentr1)ut at any rate they existed. Their 
 value was immaterial, since the intending pur- 
 chaser was not informed in the advertisement as 
 to the amount of gold, silver, or copper mined in 
 any specific period, the number of gallons of oil 
 per minute that flowed from the well, or the pre- 
 cise locality of the timber forests, but merely as to 
 the glorious future in store for all who subscribed 
 for the stock. 
 
 This vital distinction has always existed in civil 
 as well as criminal law between what is fraud and 
 what is legitimate encouragement to the buyer. 
 To tell the prospective vendee of your old gray 
 mare that she is the finest horse in the county is 
 no fraud even if she is the veriest scarecrow, for it 
 merely represents your opinion — perhaps colored 
 
 90 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 in part by your desire to sell — and is not a matter 
 of demonstrable fact. To assure him, however, 
 that she has never run away, had blind staggers, 
 or spring halt, when these assertions are not true, 
 is "a false statement as to a past or existinajact," 
 and as such constitutes a fraud — if he buys your 
 horse. 
 
 Now, it frequently has happened in my experi- 
 ence that gentlemen desiring to find purchasers for 
 securities or property of little value have so care- 
 lessly mingled statements of fact with opinions, 
 laudations, and prophecies as to their goods, that 
 juries have said that they were guilty of fraud in 
 so doing. Thus the lav^yer becomes at every turn 
 indispensable to the business man. The following 
 circular was drawn up for one of our clients and 
 is an excellent example of a perfectly harmless and 
 legal advertisement that might easily become 
 fraudulent. We will suppose that the corporation 
 owned one-quarter of an acre of wood lot about ten 
 miles from a region where copper was being mined. 
 
 SAWHIDE COPPERS 
 
 your last chance to buy this stock at present 
 
 figures! 
 
 The company's lands are located near the heart of 
 copper district, not far from properties now paying from 
 forty to sixty per cent, a year. There is no reason in the 
 
 91 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 world why Sawhide should not do as well if not better. 
 With immense quantities of ore just beneath the surface, 
 when our new smelter is completed Sawhide will un- 
 doubtedly prove one of the best dividend payers in the 
 country! As the Buggenheims and other well-known 
 financiers are largely interested in the stock, it is only a 
 question of time before it will be marked up out of sight. 
 The properties have great surface value and are rolling 
 in timber and mineral wealth. 
 
 This is a fair example of a perfectly safe variety 
 of advertisement that does not commit the author 
 to anything. As long as there is a piece of land 
 somewhere and an actual incorporated company 
 the stock of which, however valueless, is being 
 offered for sale, the mere fact that the writer in- 
 dulges himself in rosy prophecies does not en- 
 danger him so far as the criminal law is concerned. 
 It is only when he foolishly — and usually quite as 
 unconsciously — makes some definite allegation, 
 such as, for instance, that the company "owns six 
 hundred acres of fully developed mining property," 
 or has "a smelter in actual operation on the 
 ground," or "has earned sixty-five per cent, on its 
 capital in the past year," that the financier runs 
 the slightest risk. It may be that a purchaser 
 would find it so difficult to prove the falsity of any 
 of the statements upon which he had relied in pur- 
 chasing the stock that the vendor would practi- 
 
 92 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 cally be immune, but in these days of muck-raking 
 and of an hysterical pubhc conscience prosecutors 
 sometimes go to the most absurd lengths and spend 
 ridiculous amounts of money out of the county 
 treasuries to send promoters to jail. 
 
 They are apt to have a hard time of it, however. 
 I recall one scheme in which a client of mine was 
 interested, involving the flotation of about a hun- 
 dred thousand dollars' worth of railroad stock. 
 The circulars, printed by a famous engraver and 
 stationer, were twenty pages in length and con- 
 tained the minutest description of the company's 
 board of directors, rolling stock, capitalization, bond 
 issues, interests in other railroads, government 
 grants of land, and the like. They were embel- 
 lished with beautiful photogravures of deep cuts, 
 suspension-bridges, snow-sheds, railroad-yards, and 
 round-houses. The promoter did a mail-order 
 business and sold the stock by the bagful to ele- 
 vator men, trained nurses, policemen, porters, 
 clerks, and servant girls. 
 
 After he had salted away about forty thousand 
 dollars some of the purchasers began to get anxious 
 about their dividends. None were forthcoming, 
 and as the promoter was inclined to be indefinite 
 as to future prospects he was presently arrested. 
 But when the case came to trial I pointed out a 
 
 93 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 fact that, strange as it may seem, practically no 
 one of the multitude of stockholders had previ- 
 ously noticed, namely, that the circulars made no 
 actual statement as to where the railroad was lo- 
 cated. By inference it might well have been sup- 
 posed to be somewhere in Canada, but there was 
 no such fact clearly alleged. Of course it was im- 
 possible for the prosecutor to prove that my client 
 did not own a railroad somewhere in the world and 
 the indictment had to be dismissed. Negations 
 are extremely hard to establish, and therein lies 
 the promoter's safety. If he sticks to generalities, 
 no matter how they glitter, he is immune. Had my 
 railroad promoter inserted a single word descrip- 
 tive of the location of his franchise or his terminals 
 he would now be in Sing Sing instead of owning a 
 steam yacht and spending his winters in Florida. 
 From the foregoing the reader will observe that 
 the first-class criminal lavpyer by no means devotes 
 his time to defending mere burglars and "strong- 
 arm" men. The elite of the profession do as gilt- 
 edged an office practice as the most dignified cor- 
 poration attorneys. Indeed, in many respects their 
 work is strictly identical. 
 
 94 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE firm of Gottlieb & Quibble had not been 
 long established before — quite by chance — a 
 new vista of opportunity opened before us. My 
 partner had a wretched client who, not unlike many 
 others, would go to more pains and trouble to steal 
 a dollar than it would have taken him to earn 
 twenty. This, I have noticed, is a general pecu- 
 liarity of lawbreakers. The man's name was Mc- 
 DuflF and my partner had defended him on several 
 occasions and had got him off, with the result that 
 he was always hanging about the office and asking 
 if this or that were "within the law." One fine 
 day he was arrested on the charge of having ob- 
 tained money by false pretences in a unique man- 
 ner. 
 
 It appeared that he had learned through a cer- 
 tain bar-tender that one Jones, a patron of the 
 place, had but recently come into a legacy of a 
 couple of hundred dollars and, in connection there- 
 with, had imbibed so freely that he had become in- 
 volved in a fist fight with a gentleman by the name 
 
 95 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 of Holahan and had done the latter considerable 
 facial damage. McDuff pondered upon these 
 facts for some time over his beer and then set out 
 to find Jones — not a difficult task, as the legatee 
 was making a round of all the near-by saloons and 
 endeavoring to drink up his good fortune as rap- 
 idly as possible. Overtaking him in a side street 
 McDuff grasped him roughly by the shoulder. 
 
 "Look here, Jones," says he, pretending to be 
 an officer; "I have a warrant for your arrest for 
 committing a battery upon Thomas Holahan. 
 You must come along with me to the station- 
 house." 
 
 "What! For me!" cries Jones in an agony of 
 dismay. " Sure, I did nothing to the man. You're 
 not going to lock me up for that!" 
 
 "It's my unpleasant duty," answers McDuff. 
 "An officer has no choice in the matter. You 
 must step along." 
 
 "Come, come!" replies Jones, puUing his money 
 from his pocket. "Here's a hundred and fifty dol- 
 lars. Say you couldn't find me!" 
 
 "I would be taking a great risk," responds the 
 supposed officer. " Have you no more than that ? " 
 
 "I have my gold watch and chain," returned 
 Jones. "You can have them and welcome — only 
 let me go!" 
 
 96 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 The bargain was struck then and there and the 
 transfer from Jones' pockets to those of McDufF 
 effected. Unfortunately, however, Jones next day 
 discovered that Holahan harbored no ill-will 
 against him and that the supposed officer was 
 nothing of the kind. Rising in his wrath, he in 
 turn procured a warrant for McDufF and caused 
 his arrest and indictment. The trial came off and 
 despite Gottlieb's best efforts his client was con- 
 victed by the jury of stealing Jones' watch, chain, 
 and money by falsely representing himself to be an 
 officer of the law. The case went on appeal to the 
 Supreme Court, which affirmed the conviction, and 
 there seemed no escape for McDufF from a term in 
 prison. 
 
 One evening Gottlieb and I got talking about 
 the case among other things. 
 
 "How is it," said I, "that the criminal law will 
 step in and give a man back his money when, un- 
 der precisely the same circumstances, the civil 
 law will let him whistle ?" 
 
 "What mean you by that ?" asked my partner. 
 
 "Why," answered I, "the civil law will not settle 
 disputes between thieves, it will not enforce an 
 equitable division of stolen property, and it will 
 not compel rogues to keep a dishonest contract 
 between themselves. Now this fellow, Jones, it 
 
 97 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 seems to me, was almost as bad as your friend 
 McDufF. He tried to induce a man he thought 
 was a sworn officer of the law to violate his oath 
 and disregard his duty. Why should the criminal 
 law do anything for him ? Why should it hand 
 him back his money as if he were an innocent and 
 honest man ?" 
 
 "It is an ingenious argument," replied Gottlieb, 
 scratching his ear; "and yet it is poppycock for all 
 that. The criminal law is to punish criminals. 
 According to your reasoning, two wrongs would 
 make a right and two thieves one honest man. 
 Would you let McDuff go unpunished simply be- 
 cause he was clever enough to induce Jones to try 
 to break the law as well as himself? Why, any 
 judge would laugh you out of court on such a 
 proposition." 
 
 "But," I retorted, "surely, if I gave you a hun- 
 dred dollars for the purpose of bribing a judge and 
 you failed to accomplish your purpose, no court 
 would assist me to recover the money. 'Twould 
 be against public policy and contra bonos mores." 
 
 "Even so," answered my partner, "would it not 
 be more contra bonos mores to let a thief go un- 
 punished, once he had been arrested ? Take my 
 word, Quib, there's nothing in it," insisted Gott- 
 lieb warmly. "For instance, there is the crime 
 
 98 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 against usury — a very foolish law to be sure, but 
 there it is. No one can commit usury unless some 
 one else participates in the offense, by paying the 
 unlawful interest; but the usurer does not escape 
 on that account. Why, then, should the false pre- 
 tender in our case .'' " 
 
 "I admit the force of your analogy," said I, 
 "and I could easily suggest others myself. Brib- 
 ery, for instance; extortion and many other of- 
 fences, where the law does not refrain from punish- 
 ing the one because the other is equally guilty. 
 But the cases differ in that, in bribery, the briber 
 is seeking to influence the acts of an ofiicial; and, 
 in extortion, the law imputes an element of force 
 which is supposed to overcome the will of the per- 
 son paying the money. I am not so clear on your 
 usury. Still, I believe there is a fair fighting 
 chance to win the case on my theory." 
 
 "If you think so," grumbled Gottlieb, "you had 
 better argue it yourself before the Court of Ap- 
 peals." 
 
 "Very well," said I. "Nothing will give me 
 greater pleasure." 
 
 It was with some trepidation, however, that I 
 went to Albany to argue, before so august a body 
 of judges, a proposition of law that had in reality 
 so little to commend it; particularly as I was op- 
 
 99 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 posed in person by the district attorney of New 
 York County — a man of great learning and power 
 bf sarcasm. However, I found the Court of Ap- 
 peals much interested in my argument and had the 
 pleasure of hearing them put many puzzling ques- 
 tions to my opponent, in answering which he was 
 not always altogether successful. 
 
 Pending the opinion of the Court, which was not 
 handed down for several months, an incident oc- 
 curred in our practice that may serve to amuse the 
 reader if not to illustrate the dangers of ignorance. 
 We were engaged in a litigation in the United 
 States District Court, where the subpoenas for the 
 witnesses are issued by the clerk to the deputy mar- 
 shals for service. Our opponent in the case was a 
 testy old member of the bar over sixty years of age 
 and of the very highest respectability and standing, 
 who had several times refused elevation to the 
 bench and who was regarded as the personification 
 of dignity and learning. Unfortunately his ap- 
 pearance belied his position, for he was almost to- 
 tally bald and his face was as weazened and 
 wrinkled as that of a monkey. 
 
 It so happened that we desired to have in court 
 the following day certain papers that were in his 
 possession; and, in order that we might be in a 
 position to introduce copies of them in case he 
 
 loo 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 failed to produce the originals, we secured what 
 is called a duces tecum subpcEna for him — that is 
 to say, a subpoena directing him to bring with him 
 — duces tecum — "bring with you" — the papers in 
 question. There had recently been appointed as 
 a deputy marshal a very honest and enthusiastic, 
 but exceedingly ignorant Irishman named Hen- 
 nessey, who, prior to his advent into officialdom, 
 had been employed at heaving coal at a dollar and 
 eighty cents a day. The clerk called him into his 
 office and handed to him our subpoena. 
 
 "Mike," he said, "here is a subpoena for Win- 
 throp Van Rennsellaer" — our worthy opponent. 
 "It is a duces tecum. Understand?" 
 
 "Shure, I do!" answered Mike, wiping his 
 mouth with the back of his hand and taking the 
 paper; for, though he had no idea what duces tecum 
 meant, he had no intention of disclosing that fact. 
 
 "It's important," continued the clerk. "Be 
 sure and attend to the matter at once." 
 
 "Lave that to me!" Mike assured him. 
 
 "Don't forget that it's a duces tecum," admon- 
 ished the clerk as Mike passed out of the door. 
 
 "Not on yer life!" replied the newly appointed 
 deputy. 
 
 Outside, he found a fellow deputy, also newly 
 appointed. 
 
 lOI 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 "Pat," said Mike, holding out the subpoena, 
 "phat is the meanin' o' thim two wurrds ?" 
 
 His friend carefully examined the paper. 
 
 '"Duces tecum'," he repeated thoughtfully. 
 '"Dooces taycum.' They be Latin wurrds mean- 
 in' 'take him alive or dead.'" 
 
 " Thanks," said Mike. " Trust me ! " 
 
 And he started forthwith for Wall Street, where 
 Mr. Winthrop Van Rennsellaer's office was lo- 
 cated. Having ascertained by inquiry that his 
 quarry was in, Mike pushed by the clerks and 
 scriveners in the outer offices and armed with the 
 majesty of the law, boldly forced his way into the 
 lawyer's sanctum. Marching up to him, he de- 
 manded in a loud voice: 
 
 "Are you Van Rennsellaer?" 
 
 The lawyer, exceedingly astonished, replied, 
 with what dignity he was able to assume under the 
 circumstances : 
 
 "I am Mister Winthrop Van Rennsellaer." 
 
 "Come wid me!" ordered Mike. 
 
 "I shall do nothing of the kind!" retorted the 
 lawyer, getting red in the face. 
 
 "Y' won't, eh?" exclaimed the deputy; and, 
 grasping Mr. Winthrop Van Rennsellaer by his 
 linen collar, he yanked him out of his chair and, 
 to the horror of the servile supernumeraries in the 
 
 I02 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 lawyer's employ, dragged that eminent member of 
 the bar through his own offices, down the stairs, 
 and into the street. 
 
 The lawyer protested loudly at the indignities 
 to which he was being subjected and a large crowd 
 gathered, which for the time being blocked Broad- 
 way. Mike, confident that he had the authority 
 of the United States Government behind him, ex- 
 hibited his badge, called upon the police to assist 
 him in the exercise of his duty and proceeded tri- 
 umphantly to march Mr. Winthrop Van Renn- 
 sellaer, hatless, up the street at the head of a large 
 and enthusiastic procession of interested citizens. 
 From time to time Mike would turn and call upon 
 the crowd to disperse, at the same time announcing 
 in a loud voice that he had arrested his prisoner 
 by an order of the Government to take him alive or 
 dead. 
 
 By this time the lawyer's little round head was 
 glowing a bright red and his legs almost refused to 
 carry him. Once they had arrived at the Post- 
 office Building the mistake was quickly discovered 
 and Mr. Van Rennsellaer was set at liberty; but 
 each and every United States judge had to descend 
 in his robes from the bench and implore his pardon 
 before the furious little lawyer would consent to 
 call a cab and return to his office. 
 
 103 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 I understand that he always believed that the 
 whole thing was a trick of Gottlieb's to humiliate 
 him; and, indeed, some members of the bar have 
 suspected me of the same thing — entirely without 
 justification, of course. During the rest of his ex- 
 ceedingly distinguished career one had only to men- 
 tion the words duces tecum in the presence of Mr. 
 Winthrop Van Rennsellaer to deprive him in- 
 stantly of his composure; in fact, for a long time 
 he abandoned appearing in court and contented 
 himself with nursing his dignity in his office. I 
 should add that the incident so affected his confi- 
 dence the next day in court that we won our case 
 without difficulty. 
 
 But to return to the unfortunate McDuff. To 
 my great astonishment and still more so to that of 
 my partner the Court of Appeals handed down an 
 opinion sustaining my contention and holding his 
 client's conviction to be illegal. That night Gott- 
 lieb and I, sitting in his office, shook our sides with 
 laughter at the idea of having hoodwinked the 
 greatest court in the State into a solemn opinion 
 that a rogue should not be punished if at the same 
 time he could persuade his victim to try to be a 
 rogue also ! But there it was in cold print. They 
 had followed my reasoning absolutely and even 
 adopted as their own some of the language used in 
 
 104 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 my brief. Does any one of my readers doubt me, 
 let him read the report of a like case in the forty- 
 sixth volume of the reports of the Court of Appeals 
 of New York, at page four hundred and seventy. 
 
 Said the Court: "The prosecutor" — Jones — 
 "parted with his property as an inducement to a 
 supposed officer to violate the law and his duties; 
 and if in attempting to do this he has been de- 
 frauded the law will not punish his confederate, 
 although such confederate may have been instru- 
 mental in inducing the commission of the offence. 
 Neither the law nor public policy designs the pro- 
 tection of rogues in their dealings with each other, 
 or to insure fair dealing and truthfulness, as be- 
 tween each other, in their dishonest practices." 
 (This sentence had been in my brief.) "The de- 
 sign of the law is to protect those who, for some 
 honest purpose, are induced upon false and fraudu- 
 lent representations to give credit or part with their 
 property to another, and not to protect those who, 
 for unworthy or illegal purposes, part with their 
 goods." 
 
 "Why, Quib," quoth Gottlieb, "you are the dis- 
 coverer of a new legal principle. You will inau- 
 gurate a new field of human activity. Genera- 
 tions yet unborn will profit by your ingenuity. 
 From now on every rascal in the land will set his 
 
 105 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 wits to work trying to bring his schemes within 
 the scope of this beneficent opinion." 
 
 "Indeed," I replied, "however fine it may be fiar 
 McDufF, I can easily see that I have unloosed 
 as many troubles as ever flew out of Pandora's 
 Box." 
 
 "Yes — but to our profit," he retorted, with a 
 grin. "Don't forget that. The inventors will all 
 come flocking straight to us to get them out of 
 their difficulties — ^you may be sure of it!" 
 
 "'Tis extraordinary," I said, "what a multitude 
 of opportunities this new principle enunciated by 
 the Court of Appeals affords to a man of an inven- 
 tive turn of mind. As I take it, all one has to do 
 is to induce another to part with his money in the 
 belief that he is going to take a sharp advantage of 
 some one else. For example, let us suppose that I 
 go to some person and falsely tell him that I have a 
 client serving a term in Sing Sing for burglary who 
 has confided to me the whereabouts of the secret 
 hiding-place of his loot. All that is necessary is 
 some one to put up sufficient money to cover the 
 expense of transportation and excavation — and it 
 can be divided between us. For this purpose he 
 intrusts me with several hundred dollars, with 
 which I make off". I have stolen the money fast 
 enough, but I can never be punished for it." 
 
 lo6 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 "Exactly!" exclaimed my partner. "And here 
 is another idea that is well calculated to appeal to 
 almost anybody. It has just occurred to me quite 
 involuntarily while you were speaking. Many of 
 our clients want to know if they cannot send the 
 judge, who is trying their case, a present of some 
 sort, or maybe loan him a little money; and it is 
 y always distressing to be obliged to tell them — usu- 
 ally — that it is quite out of the question; that it 
 would only get them into trouble. Of course, oc- 
 casionally we let them send the judge a box of 
 cigars, hut always with the compliments of our ad- 
 versary — never our own. Now this shows how 
 readily persons who are mixed up in lawsuits or 
 other difficulties would be ready to put up their 
 money if they supposed the judge were going to 
 get it. All you need is some unscrupulous fellow 
 to go up to one of our clients and mention the fact 
 that he is the judge's brother-in-law and is in dearth 
 of ready money. Can't you see the client digging up 
 the needful ? He'd be stuffing it down our friend's 
 pockets before he got through speaking; and the 
 whole thing could be done quite openly, you observe, 
 because, even if the client found out later that he 
 had made a mistake, the law would not help him." 
 "An excellent illustration," I answered, "of the 
 uses to which a legal decision may be put." 
 
 107 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 "Indeed, though," continued Gottlieb, "the 
 scheme need by no means be as raw as all that. 
 It is enough if there be merely an immoral or im- 
 proper motive that induces the victim to part with 
 his money. For example, if he but thinks that 
 he can do a sharp trick to some one else. Let us 
 suppose that I pretend to have secret information to 
 the effect that certain property is really much more 
 valuable than the owner supposes it to be. I pro- 
 pose to another that — if he will put up the money for 
 that purpose — we shall buy the property, leading 
 the owner to suppose that he is getting full value 
 for it. Now, if, to induce the latter to make the sale, 
 it is agreed between us that we make false or mis- 
 leading statements as to the real value of the prop- 
 erty I do not see but that I would be perfectly safe." 
 
 "Safe?" I queried. " I don't understand. You 
 would have bought the property, that is all." 
 
 "My dear Quib," returned my partner, "you 
 seem singularly dull this evening for one of such 
 brilliant parts. The point is that the property 
 really isn't worth anything. I am in cahoot with 
 the man who sells it; and we divide even!" 
 
 "Yes," I answered; "a dozen similar schemes 
 could be worked liked that." 
 
 "A dozen!" cried Gottlieb, bounding enthusi- 
 astically out of his chair and commencing to stalk 
 
 io8 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 up and down the room. "A hundred! Why, 
 there are endless ways in which it can be worked — 
 and I know the man to work them too!" 
 
 "Eh!" I exclaimed. 
 
 " I mean, who will undoubtedly avail himself of 
 some of them," he corrected himself. "Take this 
 case: It is a crime under the law to give back or 
 rebate part of the premium on a life insurance 
 policy. Now many a man could be induced to in- 
 sure his life if he could get back the first year's 
 premium. All you have got to do is to tell him 
 that you are an insurance agent and will give it 
 back — and then put the money in your own pocket, 
 for he will have given you the premium for an 
 illegal purpose — that is to say, with the idea of 
 having it paid back to him contrary to law. Un- 
 der the decision he will have no chance to get you 
 arrested." 
 
 "Never say that you are not a man of ingenuity 
 yourself," said I. 
 
 I bade my partner good-night and walked slowly 
 homeward meditating upon the wonders of the 
 law, but totally unconscious of what a harvest 
 was to be reaped from the seed I had sown so 
 innocently. 
 
 It was but a short time after this that, happening 
 to enter the office somewhat unexpectedly one 
 
 109 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 evening, I discovered Gottlieb in animated con- 
 verse with a stockily built man of about forty years 
 of age, whose coal-black hair — by far his most con- 
 spicuous feature — ^had been suffered to grow quite 
 long and was parted evenly in the middle, so that 
 it gave him somewhat the appearance of the 
 hooded seal that was then on exhibition at P. T. 
 Barnum's museum. He had a good-humored face, 
 jet-black eyes, and a familiar, easy way with him 
 that put one on a friendly footing at once. 
 
 "Hello! Quib!" exclaimed my partner. "I 
 want you to meet my friend, Charlie Billington." 
 
 "Delighted to meet you. Mister Quibble," cried 
 the stranger, grasping my hand. "Our friend 
 Gottlieb knows me almost better than I know my- 
 self — eh, Gottie.? Between us we have turned 
 many a trick." 
 
 "You mean that I have pulled you out of many a 
 bad hole," retorted Gottlieb. 
 
 "As you please," answered Billington good tem- 
 peredly. " But in any event you are a splendid fel- 
 low at all times — and especially in times of need." 
 
 "May I inquire your business, Mr, Billington ?" 
 I asked, curious to identify my new acquaintance. 
 
 Billington winked at Gottlieb. 
 
 "How would you describe it, Mr. Lawyer?" 
 said he. 
 
 no 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 Gottlieb laughed and shifted his cigar. 
 
 "Our friend Charlie lives by his brains," he re- 
 plied. "He is an inventor, a promoter, an artist. 
 He has earned many a small fortune by the simple 
 use of a postage stamp. He can extract gold from 
 seawater or silver from pineapples. Incidentally, 
 he is of a scientific turn of mind and can rattle off 
 the Morse alphabet as deftly as any operator in the 
 business. Occasionally he has, in the interest of 
 finance, tapped a wire." 
 
 "Tapped a wire!" Instantly I regarded Bil- 
 lington with new interest. So at last I had met one 
 of those famous gentry of whom I had so often 
 heard ! 
 
 "Never again, I fancy!" laughed Charlie. "My 
 friend, you have saved a lot of poor devils a deal 
 of trouble. From this time on none of us will ever 
 need to tap wires. After this we shall only pre- 
 tend to tap 'em." 
 
 "How so ?" I inquired, dropping into a near-by 
 chair. 
 
 "Why, under the new law," responded Billing- 
 ton — "the law of which, I may say, you are the 
 creator — ^we shall only have to induce some inno- 
 cent countryman to believe that he has heard the 
 result of a horse-race being sent over the wire in ad- 
 vance of the pool rooms, and persuade him to turn 
 
 III 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 over his roll for the purpose of betting it on a horse 
 that is presumably already cooling off in the pad- 
 dock and we can keep his money; for he has parted 
 with it for an illegal or an inimical purpose — to wit, 
 cheating the bookies." 
 
 "Not with my sanction!" I retorted, somewhat 
 aghast at the idea of having paved a broad and easy 
 path for the way of criminals. 
 
 "Tut, tut, Quib!" said Gottlieb. "You have 
 nothing to do with what use our friend here sees 
 fit to put your law to. I have never yet advised 
 any man how to do an illegal thing. The most I 
 have ever done has been to show some of my clients 
 how to do in a perfectly legal manner that which 
 had heretofore been unlawful." 
 
 "Yea, Gottlieb," remarked Billington. "And 
 many things that before were accounted faults have 
 now, thanks to you, become virtues." 
 
 After Billington bade us good-night, Gottlieb 
 said to me: 
 
 "Quib, the more I think of it, the more astound- 
 ing is the result of this new doctrine of yours that 
 has been sanctified by the Court of Appeals. I 
 do not for the life of me see how a seller of 'green 
 goods' can be prosecuted. The countryman comes 
 to the city for the purpose of buying counterfeit 
 money at a ridiculously low figure. He puts up 
 
 112 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 his money and gets a package of blank paper with 
 a genuine one-dollar bill on top of it. What good 
 will it do him to appeal to the police ? Has he not 
 parted with his money avowedly for a most wicked 
 purpose — that of uttering counterfeit bills ?" 
 
 "I quite agree with you," I answered. "There 
 seems to be no escape from your result: and I, for 
 one, do not see what is to prevent New York from 
 becoming the Mecca of all the thieves and rogues 
 in the country." 
 
 And such, indeed, it became. From this time 
 on, until very recently, the metropolis was the 
 stamping ground of all the rogues who could not 
 earn a dishonest living elsewhere. With our friend 
 Charles as their sponser, there sprang into being 
 herds of "sick engineers," fake "wire-tappers," 
 "green-goods" swindlers, and confidence men of 
 all sorts, who flourished safely under the protection 
 of the decision of the Court of Appeals in McDufF's 
 case. 
 
 It was but shortly after this that one of Billing- 
 ton's friends found himself in the toils of the police 
 for having pretended to sell a package of "green 
 goods" to a yokel from the rural part of the State. 
 Charlie at once engaged me to defend him, asserting 
 that as I was responsible for the law it was my duty 
 to apply it for the benefit of our clients. So once 
 
 "3 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 again I entered the arena in behalf of a principle 
 that at heart I believed to be vicious and even 
 absurd, and once again, to my surprise and the 
 delight of my new clients, I triumphed. The Ap- 
 pellate Division reversed the conviction that had 
 followed the arrest and discharged the prisoner, 
 asserting that there was no longer any authority 
 for holding him if the McDufF case was to be taken 
 as law. 
 
 Thus it was, by such unconscious steps, that I, 
 the only son of a clergyman, found myself — ^willy- 
 nilly — a leader of the criminal bar. Yet at no 
 time during my career would I have exchanged 
 places with my honored parent or even with Mr. 
 Tuckerman Toddleham, of Barristers Hall, Bos- 
 ton. 
 
 114 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 AS I jot down these random reminiscences I am 
 impressed in a singular fashion with the fact 
 that my career consisted entirely in the making, or 
 rather getting, of money and the spending of it. I 
 had no particular professional ambitions and never 
 but once sought distinction as a constitutional law- 
 yer; and, however unworthy of an officer of the 
 court such a confession may be, I am quite ready 
 to admit that a seat upon the bench would have 
 afforded me neither amusement nor sufficient com- 
 pensation to satisfy my desires. Let other men 
 find their gratification and emolument in the sup- 
 posed honor of wearing the ermine ! I have never 
 found that a judge became any the less an erring 
 human being after his elevation to the dais, and I 
 could rake out of one good semi-criminal case 
 twice the salary of any judge on the supreme bench. 
 What is popularly regarded as respectability is oft- 
 times in reality — if the truth were known — merely 
 stodginess and stupidity. 
 
 "5 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 I am compelled to admit that in my early days, 
 before I had formed my affiliation with Gottlieb, I 
 had diflFerent ambitions, although they were none 
 the less worldly. Then I wanted to be a judge be- 
 cause I supposed a judge was the king-pin of the 
 profession. Now, as Pat Flanagan says, "I know 
 different." The judge is apt to be no less a tool 
 of the boss than any other public officer elected by 
 the suffrages of a political party. He is merely 
 less obviously so. There are a few men in Wall 
 Street who can press a button and call for almost 
 any judge they want — and he will come — and ad- 
 journ court if necessary to do so — ^with his silk 
 hat in his hand. And if any young aspirant for 
 legal honors who reads these fugitive memoirs be- 
 lieves that the road to the supreme bench leads 
 via Blackstone, and is lighted by the midnight oil 
 of study, let him disabuse himself of that idea, 
 but seek rather the district leader; and let him 
 make himself useful in getting the boys that are in 
 trouble out of it. Under our elective system there 
 is no more honor in being a judge than in being a 
 sheriff or a hog-reeve; but, when one is young — 
 and perhaps starving — ^it may seem otherwise. 
 
 If any of my lay readers believe that the practice 
 of the law is a path of dalliance, let him but hazard 
 his fortunes for a brief space on the good ship 
 
 ii6 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 Jurisprudence — he will find the voyage tedious be- 
 yond endurance, the ship's company but indifferent 
 in character and the rations scanty. I make no 
 doubt but that it is harder to earn an honest liv- 
 ing at the law than by any other means of liveli- 
 hood. Once one discovers this he must perforce 
 choose whether he will remain a galley slave for life 
 or hoist the Jolly Roger and turn freebooter, with a 
 chance of dangling betimes from his own yard-arm. 
 
 Many a man has literally starved at the law. 
 And most of the profession nearly do so; while 
 some, by merest luck, have managed to struggle on 
 until they stumbled upon some professional gold 
 mine. I have heard many stories of how some 
 young men managed to pull success out of disaster 
 when the odds seemed overwhelming. One which 
 has particularly appealed to me I shall call the 
 anecdote of The Most Capable Young Lawyer in 
 New York. 
 
 Some years ago there came to the great city a 
 young fellow who had always lived in a country 
 town where the neighbors were all such good 
 friends that they never went to law. He was able 
 and industrious, but in his native place found it 
 almost impossible to earn a living; and when by 
 chance he met a well-known and prosperous attor- 
 ney from New York who advised him to seek his 
 
 117 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 fortune in the whirlpool rather than in the back 
 eddies of life, he decided to follow the suggestion. 
 
 "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 pros- 
 perous friend's offices, but the latter never had any- 
 
 ii8 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 thing to turn over to him and he would return de- 
 jectedly 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 appear- 
 ance, for his eyes burned with the fever of starva- 
 tion 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 do I'll go under. The fact is, 
 I'm starving!" 
 
 Mr. Banks looked at him critically, 
 
 "Pretty near ready to give up, eh.?" he re- 
 marked. "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 this office I can give you." He 
 pondered a minute. " I've got a lot of old judg- 
 ments against a fellow named Rosenheim — in the 
 
 119 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 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 col- 
 lect," said he as he bent over and, pulling out a 
 lower drawer, removed a bundle of soiled docu- 
 ments. " 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 in- 
 side 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. Everj^hing 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." 
 
 120 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 Rosenheim had been through this same perform- 
 ance hundreds of times before, but not with the 
 same denouement. 
 
 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 fiercely 
 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, shakmg with fear. 
 Peters stuffed the money into his pocket. 
 
 121 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 "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 
 .ecognized his visitor. 
 
 " I owe you three hundred dollars, I believe," re- 
 marked 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 Com- 
 pany for two million dollars that I wish you'd come 
 in and give me a little help on. What do you say ?" 
 
 122 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 inti 
 activity. n 
 
 Baldwin was a youth of about thirty, who had 
 done pretty well at the bar without giving any evi- 
 dence of brilliancy and with only moderate finan- 
 cial 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 acquaintance 
 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 cer- 
 tain 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 
 
 123 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 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 inter- 
 ested. 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 ac- 
 quaintance 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 character- 
 istic of him, and passed on to the smoker, where he 
 ensconced himself in a chair near the door, deposit- 
 ing 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. Pres- 
 ently the bulky form of Morgan H. Rogers filled 
 the door-way. He already had a black unlit cigar 
 
 124 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 oc- 
 curred in connection with it since then." 
 
 And he returned to his paper without paying 
 any further attention to his companion. At Bridge- 
 port 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 in- 
 terest and could hardly conceal an exclamation of 
 
 125 
 
The Confessions 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 rap- 
 idly 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 in- 
 terested 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 finan- 
 cier'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 inci- 
 dents in the history of a profession that probably 
 offers more difiiculties to the beginner than any 
 other. Yet the very obstacles to success in it are 
 apt to develop an intellectual agility and a flexi- 
 
 126 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 bility 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 ca- 
 reer, upon my ingenuity in which, for a time, I 
 looked back with considerable professional pride, 
 until I found it a common practice among my el- 
 ders 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 fre- 
 quently in the wrong — and equally unreasonable 
 in either case. He was turned over to me in de- 
 spair by another and older attorney, who could do 
 nothing with him and wished me joy in my under- 
 taking. 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 pre- 
 sented 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 fond- 
 ness for technicalities; and he was quite ready to 
 
 127 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 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 a 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 consider- 
 ably 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 de- 
 mands without loss. Thus my client, by his pee- 
 vishness, actually created the very condition re- 
 garding which, out of an overactive imagination, 
 he had complained originally without just cause. 
 
 128 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 or- 
 dered 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 be- 
 cause I'm an old man!" he shrieked in his 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 mat- 
 ter; 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 
 
 129 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 papers and listened to my client's detailed history 
 of the transaction, as well as his picturesque denun- 
 ciation 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 homie 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 em- 
 barrassment may be imagined when my client ar- 
 rived 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 earn- 
 ing some good fees without the slightest exertion. 
 
 The same method — although for another pur- 
 pose — ^will be recalled by my readers as having 
 
 130 
 
»♦** 
 
 ^ ^x. 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 hun- 
 dred 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 com- 
 mended 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 
 diflFerence between the unjust steward and myself 
 lay in the manner in which we were each eventu- 
 ally treated by our respective masters. Indeed, I 
 found this Scriptural scheme so profitable and ef- 
 fective that soon my client swore I was the clever- 
 est 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 defence. I would file an elaborate 
 answer setting up all sorts of defences, move for an 
 examination of the plaintiff and of his books and 
 
 131 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 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 hun- 
 dred 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 re- 
 sisting 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 set- 
 tled 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 Gottleib devised a 
 132 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 alimony pendente lite. The coun- 
 sel fee is to enable her to pay a lawyer and pre- 
 pare 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 affi- 
 davit executed in Chicago, read as follows : 
 
 State of Illinois, 1 
 
 Cook County, City of Chicago / 
 
 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 i88i the defendant induced her to leave her 
 home in New York and to 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 thereaf- 
 
 133 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 ter defendant deserted plaintiff and has never since con- 
 tributed 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 de- 
 fendant had given the plaintiflF 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, Gottheb," 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 gentle- 
 
 134 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 man. 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 ap- 
 plications 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 to 
 his room, while I 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 respecta- 
 ble 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 law- 
 yer grew very indignant and muttered something 
 under his breath about perjury and blackmail, to 
 which, however, neither Gottlieb nor I paid any 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 attention. A week or so later we made our motion 
 for alimony and counsel fee pendente 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 at- 
 torneys for the 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 to- 
 gether had he chosen to do so. 
 
 "Good afternoon, gentlemen," said he, closing 
 the door and seating himself at Gottlieb's invita- 
 tion. "This is a very interesting experience you 
 are putting me through. I am made the defend- 
 ant in a divorce action and ordered to pay you two 
 hundred and fifty dollars on affidavits that I know 
 to be 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. 
 
 136 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 di- 
 rected. "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 ex- 
 pected 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. 
 
 137 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 "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 "so- 
 ciety" 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 it 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 — inde- 
 pendent establishments. Mr. prefers the 
 
 upper West Side, while Mrs. has a tidy little 
 
 Louis XVI flat on Eleventh Street. Incidental- 
 ly 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 per- 
 sistent rumor that Mrs. Jones will remain with her 
 mother on the Hudson, while her husband's plans 
 are quite indefinite." 
 
 138 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 of Social Sifting on 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 expect favorable items 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 re- 
 flections could be found in the columns of his paper 
 in regard to its new stockholder. 
 
 Unfortunately for all parties, however, the "Gen- 
 eral" took exception to the size of one of our bills 
 and we parted with mutual recriminations, al- 
 
 139 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 though he had paid us many thousands of dollars 
 in fees and we had saved him many more in judg- 
 ments. 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 appropri- 
 ate 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, dis- 
 covered very shortly another libelous paragraph, 
 which reflected very seriously upon his young and 
 attractive wife; and as it was pretty generally 
 known at that time that the "General" and our- 
 selves 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 
 
 140 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 guar- 
 antee — 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 ban- 
 tam, arrayed in the uniform of an overgrown mes- 
 senger 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 pre- 
 text 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 ban- 
 tam, 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- 
 
 141 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 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 yourn. 
 That one is for Mr. . Gimme it back ! " 
 
 "One moment, my boy!" replied the "General," 
 hastily tearing open the envelope. "Just one mo- 
 ment." 
 
 " 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 .f"' Bing! "Not wit' me here — see?" Bing! 
 Bing! "You white-haired old son of a printing- 
 press!" 
 
 142 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 Hennessey's description, on his return to the 
 office, of the "General's" appearance at the con- 
 clusion of his drubbing was eminently satisfac- 
 tory; and he forthwith exchanged his messenger's 
 uniform for his Broadway regalia and a crisp one- 
 hundred-doUar bill. That is the only time, so far 
 as I have 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 "Hu- 
 man Dog," who frequented the main thorough- 
 fares during the crowded hours and simulated the 
 performances of a starving animal with a verisi- 
 militude 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, 
 
 143 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 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 haJ^eas 
 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 thou- 
 sand 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 
 
 144 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 amuse himself by so doing in his leisure moments. 
 One of the best — ^the idea for which he sold for 
 three hundred dollars and which is still being used 
 in New York, Chicago, and elsewhere — is the fol- 
 lowing: 
 
 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 dis- 
 couraged, 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 psy- 
 chological 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 pa- 
 
 H5 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 tiently 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 particu- 
 larity 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 it upon a station platform, 
 would put her heel upon it and fall prostrate, ut- 
 tering 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 re- 
 sult of a fall caused by a bit of banana skin care- 
 lessly left lying upon the premises. An ambulance 
 would be summond, but she would insist upon being 
 taken to her own home — an imposing mansion — 
 and calling her own physician. In due course the 
 
 146 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 railroad would send its doctor, who would report 
 that her condition was serious; and, as the leaving 
 of banana peel upon a public platform is in its very 
 nature "negligent," the company's lawyers 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 — tempo- 
 rarily — 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 ex- 
 changed, cancelled, outlawed, or in some other way 
 had become valueless. How our client secured 
 them I never discovered. He also dealt in the re- 
 pudiated bonds of Southern cities and States, 
 which can be purchased for practically nothing 
 almost anywhere. 
 
 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 narnes, 
 
 147 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 such as the Tennessee Gas, Heat, and Power Com- 
 pany, the Mercedes-Panard-Charon Motor Ve- 
 hicle Supply Company, the Nevada Coal, Coke, 
 Iron, and Bi-product Company, the Chicago Bank- 
 ing and Securities Company, the Farmers' Loan 
 and Credit Company, the Southern Georgia Land 
 and Fruit Company, and so on. He had an im- 
 pressive 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 sev- 
 eral 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 him- 
 self, 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 respon- 
 
 148 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 sibility. 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 tele- 
 phone 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 all egotists, 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 
 
 149 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 f 
 However, he had invented these financial Franken- 
 steins and they finally overwhelmed him. Some- 
 where 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. 
 
 150 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 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 brace- 
 lets," yet they have never seen the inside of a sta- 
 tion-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 Bastile. They picture 
 officers of the law as human bulldogs, with under- 
 shot, foam-dripping jaws and bloodshot eyes. The 
 bourne — ^from which so many travellers never re- 
 turn — bounded by the criminal statutes, is a terra 
 incognita to the average citizen. A bailiff with a 
 warrant for his arrest would cause his instant col- 
 lapse and a message that "all was discovered" 
 
 151 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 would — exactly as in the popular saw — lead him 
 to flee at once. 
 
 Upon this dread of the unknown the criminal at- 
 torney plays whenever possible. It is his strong- 
 est 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 — en- 
 gages the shyster to keep him out of jail. The 
 practical weapon of the criminal lawyer is the war- 
 rant 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 result; 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 
 
 152 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 action against her 
 faithless follower has the right to put him under 
 arrest and make him give bail; and the young gen- 
 tleman who would laugh ordinarily at the mere 
 service of papers may well settle her claim if a 
 sheriflF 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 ar- 
 rest 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 obliga- 
 tions 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 
 
 153 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 a voluntary exile until they should be in funds 
 again. Indeed, there were certain hostelries en- 
 tirely 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 in- 
 stance, the conversion of money. 
 
 Among our clients there was a certain exceed- 
 ingly 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 per- 
 suaded by an unscrupulous manager to intrust to 
 him a large sum of money for investment in his vari- 
 ous 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 Gott- 
 lieb and myself for assistance and we speedily se- 
 cured judgment for the full amount — fifteen thou- 
 sand dollars — after a hotly contested trial, in which 
 
 154 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 the defendant perjured himself very unlike a gentle- 
 man. 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 man- 
 aged his business and paid furtive visits to the me- 
 tropolis 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 be- 
 come a habit and then informed me that he pro- 
 posed 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 even- 
 ing in merry feasting, presumably upon the money 
 of our client. It was a clear moonlight night and 
 
 155 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 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 tow- 
 ard 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 probable that a sudden vision 
 
 156 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 an- 
 swered 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 
 
 157 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 down the street. Suddenly the unfortunate man- 
 ager 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 unsym- 
 pathetically 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 smiliar 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 my- 
 self. 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 side- 
 walk 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, 
 158 
 
ITf lav like an ovcTtiirncd Junc-bu^ ujicm tlic si<k'walk 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 adding, after a moment's pause — "and disburse- 
 ments." 
 
 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 dis- 
 charge. The days are long since over, however, 
 when judgment debtors 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 bet- 
 ter 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 inex- 
 perienced 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 charge of a clerk while the 
 owner was out attending to his work or securing 
 
 159 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 orders. Levine would find some excuse for enter- 
 ing the shop, engage the clerk in conversation, and 
 having secured his attention would produce one 
 of his watches and extol its merits at length, ex- 
 plaining what a great bargain it was and how — 
 only owing to an exceptional concatenation of cir- 
 cumstances — ^he was able to offer it for the ridicu- 
 lously 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 instalment plan. If this 
 did not appeal to the clerk Levine would persuade 
 him to keep it for a short time on approval, pay- 
 ing 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 pend- 
 ing 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 that on the date in question he had 
 sold — ^not to the clerk, but to his employer — a gold 
 
 1 60 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 affida- 
 vit that the latter had personally served a copy of 
 the complaint in question, together with a sum- 
 mons, upon the defendant, and place the case on 
 the calendar for trial. Of course no papers were 
 in fact served on anybody and Levine would in due 
 course secure judgment by default for sixty-odd 
 dollars. Armed with a certified copy of the judg- 
 ment 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. Burst- 
 ing roughly in, he would demand whether or not 
 it was the intention of the owner to pay the judg- 
 ment, while at the same moment the deputy would 
 levy on the stock in trade. 
 
 The owner of the shop, having been hastily sum- 
 moned, would return to demand angrily what the 
 rumpus was all about. By this time the clerk 
 
 i6i 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 would have recovered his wits sufficiently to de- 
 nounce 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 explana- 
 tions. At all events, they availed naught, when 
 Levine, with an expression of horror at such delib- 
 erate 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 1 " 
 
 "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 judg- 
 
 162 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 merit of the court ? Now, my fine fellow, you will 
 either pay up this money that you owe or I'll ad- 
 vance 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 re- 
 leased 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, fol- 
 lowed the matter up. Having first arrested the 
 man who made the false affidavit of service, he in- 
 duced 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 par- 
 ticularly 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, un- 
 til 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 in- 
 
 163 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 troduced 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 com- 
 pany and actually hears the results of the races com- 
 ing 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 pur- 
 pose — to wit, in an attempt to win money from an- 
 other who was wagering his own money in good 
 faith — and the rogue who had seduced his con- 
 science 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 
 
 164 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 con- 
 soled 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 HoUiday, 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. 
 
 165 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SHAKE hands with Mr. DilUngham, Quib," 
 said Gottlieb as I one day unexpectedly en- 
 tered 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 per- 
 sonally had the pleasure of your acquaintance." 
 
 "The future will, I trust, remedy that," I re- 
 plied, 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 stove- 
 pipe 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 my biggest one when I annexed the present 
 Mrs. D. I was a young fool hardly out of my teens, 
 
 i66 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 a 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 Dilling- 
 ham. "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 so 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 James 
 died just about that time and left me ten thousand 
 dollars and I started in to piake her my own by 
 getting her a divorce. Now, this hushzmd of hers 
 
 167 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 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 men 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 go- 
 ing 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 ? 
 i68 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 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 but- 
 termilk. 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 busi- 
 ness. To-day I'm worth real money and am on top 
 of the heap downtown ; but socially — Good Lord 1 
 the woman's a millstone! She's grown fat and 
 
 talks through her nose, and " 
 
 169 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 "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 with- 
 out 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 Hawkins versus Hawkins 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 
 170 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 place, the original decree is no good unless the sum- 
 mons 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 Hawkins versus Hawkins were 
 ever legally initiated." 
 
 "Hold on, Mr. Gottlieb!" remonstrated Dilling- 
 ham. "You want to go easy there. After Haw- 
 kins 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 handker- 
 chief nervously. 
 
 "Say," he began, "isn't that taking a pretty long 
 
 chance ^ I " 
 
 171 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 "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 defend- 
 ant never was served — perhaps that he never even 
 knew of the proceeding until years afterward. We 
 don't know what you know. You don't need to know 
 what we 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 hesitatingly, "and I leave the matter 
 in your hands. How long will it take V' 
 
 "Everything now depends on our friend Haw- 
 kins," 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 fist occa- 
 sion upon which Gottlieb had deliberately acknowl- 
 edged to a client that he would resort to perjury 
 to accomplish his ends. 
 
 172 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 " 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 pref- 
 erence to Bunce if we choose. Anyhow, we're not 
 the judge. All we have to do is to present the evi- 
 dence at our command — if we can get it. And, by 
 Gad ! we will get it if it costs us ten thousand dollars ! 
 Why, Quib, the thing is a windfall. Thirty-five 
 thousand! Why, thirty-five hundred for 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 slight 
 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 con- 
 fidence and cold-blooded selfishness. In addition, 
 
 173 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 I was quite sure that there was some other fell rea- 
 son 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 Gott- 
 lieb 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 Hfe; and, though my friends 
 to a great extent remained among the theatrical and 
 sporting class to which I had received my first in- 
 troduction on coming to New York, I now occupied 
 a large brick house with stone trimmings in Wash- 
 ington Square, where I entertained in truly luxu- 
 rious 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. 
 
 Though I had never allowed myself to be caught 
 in the net of matrimony, I had many friends among 
 the fair sex, particularly among those who graced 
 the footlights; and some of my evening parties did 
 not break up until dawn was glinting over the roofs 
 of the respectable mansions round about me. It 
 
 174 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 was a gay life, but it cost money — almost more 
 money than I could make; and my share in the 
 thirty-five thousand dollars offered by our friend 
 Dillingham would go a long way to keeping up my 
 establishment for another year. So I allowed my 
 qualms to give me no further uneasiness and told 
 myself that Gottlieb was clever enough to manage 
 the business in such a fashion that there would be 
 no "come-back." 
 
 A week or so later I encountered in our office 
 a narrow-shouldered, watery-eyed, reddish-nosed 
 party that I instantly recognized for Hawkins. 
 There could be no doubt about the matter, for he 
 had a way of standing at attention and thrusting 
 his head forward when addressed that were un- 
 mistakable. He was waiting, it turned out, for 
 Gottlieb, who had sent for him to come on from 
 Baltimore; and the readiness with which he had 
 responded could be better accounted for by the five 
 hundred dollars which he had received at the hands 
 of our emissary for travelling expenses than by any 
 desire on his part to regain the society of the present 
 Mrs. Dillingham. 
 
 "I suppose," began Gottlieb when he had retired 
 to the seclusion of his inner office, "that you fully 
 understand that the divorce secured by your wife is 
 inoperative — Tut! Tut! Don't interrupt me!" 
 
 175 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 — for Hawkins had opened his mouth in protest — 
 "for the reason — for the veiy good reason, I re- 
 peat — that you were never served with any sum- 
 mons or notified that the proceeding had been 
 commenced. Am I correct?" 
 
 Hawkins grinned and turned his watery eyes 
 from one of us to the other. 
 
 "Quite so, sir!" he stuttered. "Exactly, sir!" 
 
 "Now, on the contrary, if any one says you were 
 served with such a paper, it was quite impossible, 
 for the reason — by the way, what was the reason ?" 
 
 Hawkins dropped one eyelid to a narrow slit and 
 pursed his lips. 
 
 "Quite impossible, sir! The fact is, sir, I was 
 waitin' on a dinin'-car that ran at the time between 
 San Antonio and New Orleans, sir." 
 
 "You see, Quib!" exclaimed Gottlieb. "My 
 suspicions in the matter were quite correct. This 
 gentleman has been most outrageously treated ! If 
 you will kindly retire for a moment — as I have a 
 matter which I wish to discuss with him privately 
 — I will turn him over to you for the purpose of 
 taking his affidavit." 
 
 A few moments thereafter Hawkins appeared in 
 my office, apparently in the act of stuffing some- 
 thing into his pocket, and announced that he was 
 ready to sign his "davy." Although I had no taste 
 
 176 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 for the business, there was nothing for it but to do 
 my part; so I called in a stenographer and dictated 
 the following: 
 
 SUPREME COURT— COUNTY OF NEW YORK 
 
 RuFus p. Dillingham, Plaintiff") . . r ^ i 
 
 ( Action for Annul- 
 agamst > r iy 
 
 Lilian Dillingham, Defendant j rnent oj Marriage 
 
 City and County of New York, ss.: 
 
 Arthur P. Hawkins, being duly sworn, deposes and 
 says: that he is forty-three years old, a waiter by occu- 
 pation, and resides in the city of Baltimore, Maryland; 
 that he was married to the defendant herein on the eigh- 
 teenth day of June, 187-, and thereafter lived with her 
 as man and wife until the month of December, 1882, 
 when for some reason unknown to deponent the defend- 
 ant left his house and did not thereafter return; that he 
 has recently learned that said defendant, in July, 1887, 
 procured a decree of divorce against him in the county 
 and State of New York, upon grounds of which deponent 
 is totally ignorant, and that thereafter said defendant 
 contracted a marriage with one Rufus P. Dillingham, the 
 plaintiff herein; that deponent was never served with any 
 summons or complaint in said action of divorce and had 
 no knowledge or information that any such proceeding 
 was pending against him; that he never appeared in such 
 proceeding and until recently always supposed that the 
 defendant was his lawful wife. 
 
 Sworn to before me this four- ) . tj tr 
 
 , J re . u o > Arthur p. Hawkins 
 teenth day ot September, 1894 ) 
 
 Isaac M. Cohen, 
 Notary Public, New York County. 
 
 177 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 There was something about this seedy rascal that 
 filled me with disgust and suspicion, and he looked 
 at me out of the corners of his evil eyes as if he knew 
 that by some trick of fate he had me in his power 
 and was gloating over it. Even while he was swear- 
 ing to the paper he had a sickly sneer on his pimply 
 face that sickened me; and when Cohen, my clerk, 
 administered the oath to him he had the audacity 
 to wink in his face and answer: 
 
 "It's the truth— no</" 
 
 Cohen, who knew a thing or two and had taken 
 affidavits before, merely laughed, but the words 
 sent a shiver down my spine and I snarled out: 
 
 "Be careful what you are saying ! Do you swear 
 that this affidavit of yours is true ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir! Yes, sir!" he hastened to answer, 
 somewhat chagrined at my not taking as a joke 
 what he had intended for one. 
 
 "Very well," said I to Cohen. " Show the gentle- 
 man out. I'm very busy. Good-day." 
 
 Afterward I would have given all the money I 
 possessed to undo what I had done. 
 
 The case of Dillingham versus Dillingham duly 
 came on for trial, with Oscar Willoughby Bunce as 
 the chief witness for the defendant. He had visited 
 our office several times in an attempt to convince 
 
 178 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 us that we were entirely misinformed in regard to 
 the service of the papers in the original action and 
 had insisted vehemently that he had personally de- 
 livered them to Hawkins in the office of the Astor 
 House. Gottlieb had gently assured him that he 
 must be mistaken and bowed him out, but Bunce 
 for once in his little toy career was " all up in the 
 air." He felt that his own integrity was, in some 
 mysterious way, at stake, since it was upon his own 
 testimony to the effect that he had made the service 
 of the papers in question that the original decree 
 had in part been granted. The case was sent to a 
 referee for hearing, and on the morning of the day 
 set Gottlieb called me into his office and said : 
 
 "Harkee, Quib! I've a plan that will put our 
 little friend Bunce's nose out of joint for good. It 
 is nearly seven years now since he has seen Haw- 
 kins and it was then only for a moment." 
 
 "Well," said I, "what is your game?" 
 
 " Come along to the hearing and you'll find out, 
 my lad," answered Gottlieb. "Don't fail if you 
 want to see some fun." 
 
 Curious to discover what trick Gottlieb would be 
 able to play, I accordingly arranged my work so as 
 to attend the hearing, which was to be held in the 
 referee's office in an old wooden building on Broad- 
 way, As I climbed the stairs I caught sight of 
 
 179 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 Hawkins skulking on one of the landings, but he 
 laid a finger on his lips and I passed on and up to 
 the attorney's office. The room, like most old- 
 fashioned lawyers' offices, was but dimly lighted, 
 and on entering I found the other side, with the ex- 
 ception of Mrs. Dillingham, already there. The 
 referee sat at one end of a large table, surrounded 
 by his books, with the stenographer beside him; 
 and to his left sat Bunce and a lawyer named Stires, 
 the present "attorney of record" for the defendant. 
 I took my seat opposite them, introduced myself to 
 the referee and w;aited. In a few moments the door 
 opened noisily and Gottlieb entered with much 
 bustle, accompanied by a clerk carrying books and 
 papers and by a perfectly strange man, arrayed in 
 very new clothes, who seemed much embarrassed' 
 and doubtful as to what he should do. 
 
 "Good afternoon, gentlemen!" exclaimed Gott- 
 lieb breezily. " I regret to have kept you waiting, 
 but I was unavoidably detained. Shall I sit down 
 here ? Yes ? Very good. Please take your seat 
 beside me, Mr. Hawkins." 
 
 The stranger blushed, fumbled his hat, and sat 
 down bashfully in the place designated. 
 
 "Are you ready to proceed, gentlemen f" in- 
 quired the referee over his spectacles. "Call your 
 first witness." 
 
 1 80 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 Bunce, who had been fidgeting in his eagerness to 
 tell what he knew, instantly bobbed up and asked 
 to be sworn. 
 
 After giving his name, age, and profession, he 
 detailed how he had prepared the papers in the 
 original case of Hawkins versus Hawkins and 
 served them upon the defendant personally at the 
 Astor House. 
 
 "I handed them to Mr. Hawkins myself and ex- 
 plained them to him. He was dressed very much 
 as he is now," cried Bunce. 
 
 "Do you positively identify this gentleman on 
 your oath as the person you served with the sum- 
 mons and complaint.!"' inquired Gottlieb as if the 
 matter were merely one of routine. 
 
 "Absolutely!" retorted Bunce hotly. "I could 
 identify him anywhere by the shape of his nose. I 
 took especial pains to remark his appearance in 
 case the service should ever be disputed." 
 
 "Thank you. That is all," said Gottlieb. Then 
 turning to the stranger he directed him to take the 
 stand. 
 
 "What is your name ?" he asked sternly. 
 
 "Aaron Finklestein — as you know very well, 
 Mr. Gottlieb," answered the stranger. 
 
 "Do you recognize this gentleman who has just 
 testified?" indicating Bunce. 
 
 i8i 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 "As far as I know I never saw him in my life," 
 answered Finklestein. 
 
 "Did he ever serve you with any papers — in the 
 Astor House or anywhere else?" 
 
 "Never." 
 
 "What is your business ?" 
 
 "I am an undertaker." 
 
 In an instant the room was in a turmoil, Bunce 
 screaming out that he had been tricked by a parcel 
 of shysters, Gottlieb indignantly defending his ruse 
 as a perfectly proper method of discrediting Bunce, 
 and the referee vainly endeavoring to restore order. 
 As for myself, in spite of my anxiety over the whole 
 affair, I could not do otherwise than laugh heartily 
 over Bunce's ludicrous mistake. When Hawkins 
 was brought in from outside and, after proclaiming 
 his identity, denied ever being served in the original 
 action, the referee was but little inclined to listen to 
 Lawyer Bunce, who now corrected his testimony 
 and swore just as insistently that the real Hawkins 
 was the person to whom he had given the papers in 
 the case. 
 
 Here, then, was as pretty a trick as had ever been 
 played on an unsuspecting and well-meaning law- 
 yer; and by it Gottlieb had so strengthened our 
 position that, very likely, the referee would have 
 found for our side even had not Hawkins taken it 
 
 182 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 upon himself to swear the matter through. More- 
 over, the only person who could have disproved the 
 latter's testimony or given evidence that might have 
 militated against its probability — ^to wit, Crook- 
 shank, his former attorney — ^was dead and buried, 
 and it seemed as if truth were buried with him. 
 On the way back to our office I congratulated my 
 partner on the Napoleonic strategy which he had 
 displayed and a few days later a more substantial 
 compliment followed, in the shape of an unqualified 
 finding in our favor on the part of the referee. 
 
 "Was ever thirty-five thousand dollars earned so 
 easily ?" laughed Gottlieb over his cigar as we were 
 dining at Delmonico's. 
 
 " So long as Hawkins stays bought — ^yes," I an- 
 swered. 
 
 "Don't be a death's head, Quib!" he retorted. 
 "Why, even if he turned State's evidence, no one 
 would believe him! Have another glass of this 
 vintage — ^we can drink it every night now for a year 
 at Dillingham's expense!" 
 
 "Well, here's to you, Gottlieb!" I answered, fill- 
 ing my goblet with the creaming wine; "and here's 
 to crime — ^whereby we live and move and have our 
 being!" 
 
 And we clinked our glasses and drained them 
 with a laugh. 
 
 183 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 I had now been a resident of New York for up- 
 ward of twenty years and had acquired, as the 
 junior member of the firm of Gottlieb & Quibble, 
 an international reputation. It is true that my 
 partner and I felt it to be beneath our diginity to 
 advertise in the newspapers — and, indeed, advertis- 
 ing in New York City was for us entirely unneces- 
 sary — but we carried a card regularly in the Eng- 
 lish journals and received many retainers from 
 across the water; in fact, we controlled practically 
 all the theatrical business in the city, drawing the 
 contracts for the managers and being constantly 
 engaged in litigations on their behalf. We had long 
 since abandoned as trivial all my various profit- 
 sharing schemes, and, with the exception of carrying 
 on our pay-rolls many of the attendants attached to 
 the police and other criminal courts, had practically 
 no "runners." We did not need any. There was no 
 big criminal case in which we were not retained for 
 the defence and rarely a divorce action of any noto- 
 riety where we did not appear for one of the parties. 
 
 This matter of Hawkins's was the first in twenty 
 years in which we had ever deliberately faked an 
 entire case ! Yet, if ever there was a safe opportu- 
 nity to do so, this seemed the one, and I cannot 
 even now charge Gottlieb with recklessness in 
 taking the chances that he did; but, as luck would 
 
 184 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 have it, there were two facts connected with the 
 DiUingham annulment the significance of which 
 we totally overlooked — one, that Bunce was not so 
 much of a fool as he looked, and the other, that 
 Mrs. Dillingham was a mother. 
 
 Once, however, judgment had been entered to 
 the effect that Mrs. Dillingham had never lawfully 
 ceased to be Mrs. Hawkins, then the real reason of 
 our client's anxiety to be rid of his wife and her 
 child, a girl of six years, became apparent; for he 
 instantly announced his engagement to a fashiona- 
 ble widow, who lacked money if not experience, 
 and who needed the one as much as he had a super- 
 abundance of the other. He made a fairly liberal 
 allowance for his child and its mother, and since 
 this was paid monthly through our office, I had an 
 opportunity of making their acquaintance; and I 
 confess that I had no sooner done so than I began 
 to have a sort of regret for my own part in the trans- 
 action. For Mrs. Dillingham — Hawkins, or what- 
 ever she was — proved to be a rather sweet-faced 
 young woman, with great, sad blue eyes and a win- 
 somely childish innocence of expression that con- 
 cealed, as I afterward found out, a will of iron and 
 a heart full of courage. 
 
 She used to come and wait for Gottlieb or me to 
 pay over her money, and while she waited she would 
 
 185 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 sit there so helplessly, looking withal so lovely, that 
 the clerks cannot be blamed for having talked to 
 her. Incidentally she extracted from the suscepti- 
 ble Cohen various trifles in the way of information 
 which later proved highly inconvenient. Yet she 
 never asked me or my partner any questions or 
 showed the slightest resentment at the part we had 
 played as her husband's attorneys in ruining her 
 life. Sometimes she brought the little girl with her 
 and I marvelled that Dillingham could have sacri- 
 ficed such a charming little daughter so easily. 
 
 Six months passed and the Dillingham scandal 
 ceased to be a matter of public or even of private 
 interest. Other affairs, equally profitable, en- 
 gaged our attention, and the waiter, Hawkins, hav- 
 ing received a substantial honorarium from the 
 firm's bank account, had passed completely out of 
 our minds. I had that winter been giving a series 
 of dinners at my house to my actor clients and their 
 managers, and these had proved conspicuously suc- 
 cessful for the reason that my guests were of the sort 
 who, after the wine had begun to flow, had no 
 hesitation in entertaining the rest of the company 
 by an exhibition of their talents. Occasionally, 
 as part of the fun, I would do a bit of a turn myself 
 by way of reviving old memories of the Cock and 
 Spur and my Athenaeum days in Boston. 
 
 i86 
 
I marvelled that Dillingham could have sacrificed such a 
 charming little daughter so easily 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 It was on one of these festive occasions — not un- 
 like, my readers may recall, my famous translation 
 from college during my banquet at the Cambridge 
 Tavern — that Fate struck me my first severe blow. 
 My guests were still sitting at table while one of the 
 ladies executed a fantastic dance amid the wine- 
 glasses, when my butler touched me upon the arm 
 and whispered that Mr. Gottlieb was outside and 
 desired to see me on urgent business. Excusing 
 myself, I hurried out, greeting my partner rather 
 impatiently, as I disliked to be interrupted by busi- 
 ness details in my hours of relaxation; but one 
 sight of his weazened little hawk face sufficed to tell 
 me that no trifling matter was at stake. He was in 
 his day clothes, which were even more than ordi- 
 narily dishevelled, and his face, usually pale, was 
 chalklike. 
 
 "Quibble," he cried in a rasping voice as soon 
 as my man had gone, "our luck's turned! That 
 woman has tricked us. She and Bunce went down 
 to Crookshank's office and, under the pretext of 
 looking for some deed or release, went through his 
 papers and turned up some letters from Hawkins 
 in regjird to the original divorce proceedings. 
 They've got one in which he admits being served 
 by Bunce in the Astor House and asks Crookshank 
 to appear for him. They've got another, written 
 
 187 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 after Dillingham had fixed him, telling Crookshank 
 to put in no defence. Yesterday she and Bunce 
 went before the grand jury, who returned an indict- 
 ment against Hawkins for perjury. Then she tele- 
 graphed him to come on to New York and meet her 
 to arrange some money matters; and when he 
 stepped off the train this afternoon he was arrested 
 and taken to police head-quarters." 
 
 "My God!" I cried, turning quite faint. 
 "What's to be done?" 
 
 "Get him out of the way as soon as possible!" 
 answered Gottlieb, his lips trembling. "To-mor- 
 row morning he will be arraigned in the General 
 Sessions. They are going to ask for fifty thou- 
 sand dollars bail. We've got to get it. It's the 
 only thing that stands between us and State prison, 
 for they've got the goods on Hawkins and unless 
 we see him safe he'll turn on us and help them 
 send us up!" 
 
 "Have you seen him .'"' I gasped. 
 
 "I've just come from head-quarters," he an- 
 swered. "The fool had been drinking and had 
 given up a lot of information already. So I fright- 
 ened him until he agreed to shut up. The trouble 
 is we gave him too much money. He says now 
 that unless we protect him and keep him out of 
 State prison he will give up the whole game to the 
 
 i88 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 district attorney. That would be fine, wouldn't it! 
 The district attorney wouldn't waste much time on 
 Arthur P. Hawkins if he could land Gottlieb & 
 Quibble in jail for subornation of perjury, would 
 he — eh ? We've got to scratch gravel — and quick 
 too!" 
 
 " But where can we raise fifty thousand dollars ?" 
 I groaned helplessly. 
 
 "Dillingham," he retorted without hesitation. 
 "He's our only hope. He's in as bad as the rest 
 of us. If we go we can pull him along too. I un- 
 derstand that the woman is prepared to swear not 
 only that Hawkins admitted to her that he was 
 properly served, but that she told this to Dilling- 
 ham, and that he and Hawkins talked the thing 
 over in her presence. Besides, Cohen confessed 
 to me to-day that she had pumped him all about 
 Hawkins's coming over to New York and signing 
 papers; and, although he swears he didn't tell her 
 anything in particular, yet I don't trust the idiot. 
 No, Quib; it's bad business and we've got to get 
 Hawkins out of the way at any cost." 
 
 It was not until nearly three o'clock in the morn- 
 ing that I discovered Dillingham's whereabouts, 
 which happened to be the Fifth Avenue house of a 
 fashionable friend, where he was playing poker. 
 He greeted me in much the same inhospitable fash- 
 
 189 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 ion that I had accorded to Gottlieb, but only a few 
 words were needed to convince him of the gravity 
 of the case. I had never loathed the man more 
 than I did at that instant when, with a cigar stuffed 
 in his fat face, he came out of the card-room, 
 dressed in his white waistcoat and pearl studs, and 
 with a half-drunken leer asked what I wanted. 
 
 "I want fifty thousand dollars to keep you and 
 me out of State prison!" I cried. 
 
 He turned a sickly yellow and gave a sort of chok- 
 ing gasp. 
 
 " Hawkins ! " he muttered. " Damn him ! " 
 
 Then Dillingham had a sort of fit, due no doubt 
 partly to the fact that he had drunk more cham- 
 pagne than was good for him; for he trembled with 
 a kind of ague and then broke out in a sweat and 
 blubbered, and uttered incoherent oaths, until I 
 was half beside myself lest he should keep it up all 
 night and I should not get the money from him. 
 But at last he regained control of himself and prom- 
 ised to borrow the fifty thousand dollars the first 
 thing in the morning and to have it at my office by 
 ten o'clock. Yet, as I bade him good night, he had 
 another turn of terror and his teeth chattered in his 
 head as he stammered out that he was a ruined man, 
 that he had cast off a good wife for a deceitful hussy 
 who only wanted his money, that he had lost his 
 
 190 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 child, that now his career was over, and that, unless 
 I stood by him, he would end his days in prison. 
 This was hardly the sort of encouragement I 
 wanted; and though his words brought the cold 
 sweat out upon my back, I told him pretty sharply 
 that he had better pull himself together and not be 
 any more of a fool than he could help, that all we 
 needed was enough money to whip Hawkins out of 
 the way, and that if he would "come up" with the 
 needful we would look out for him. I left him a 
 disgusting sight, sitting in a red plush armchair, 
 with his face in his hands, his hair streaking down 
 across his forehead, moaning and mumbling to 
 himself. 
 
 Outside, the city slept the prenatal sleep of dawn. 
 A pale greenish veil hung over the roofs, through 
 which day must peer before awakening those who 
 slept beneath. I had often noticed this greenish 
 color in the sky, made doubtless by the flare of gas 
 and electricity against the blue-black zenith, yet 
 never before had I felt its depressing character. It 
 was the green of jealousy, of disappointment, of 
 envy, hatred, and malice and all uncharitableness ! 
 The city trembled in its sleep and the throbbing 
 of its mighty pulse beat evilly upon my ears with 
 distant hostile rumblings. I was alone in it and in 
 danger. Disaster and ruin were looking for me 
 
 191 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 around the corner. I was like a child, helpless and 
 homeless. I could not call upon God, for I did not 
 believe in Him. 
 
 It came home to me, as I stood there in the night 
 upon the open street, that there was not one soul 
 among all the city's sleeping millions who owed me 
 aught but harm, and that even those who had 
 drunk the wine of my hospitality had done so 
 more in fear than in friendship. I had no friends 
 but those who were bound to me in some devil's 
 bargain — ^no kith, no kin, nor the memory of a 
 mother's love. As I lingered there, like some out- 
 cast beast waiting for day to drive me to my lair, 
 I envied, with a fierce hatred and with a bitter and 
 passionate pity for myself, those to whom Fate had 
 been more kind and given home and wife and chil- 
 dren, or at least the affection of their fellow men, 
 and I envied the lads I had known in college who 
 led clean lives and who had shunned me — they 
 knew not why — and the happy-go-lucky Quirk and 
 his busy wife; and even old Tuckerman Toddle- 
 ham, in his dingy office in Barristers' Hall. 
 
 192 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 DAYBREAK found me still wandering in the 
 streets, haunted by the fear that the police 
 might already be upon my track and furious at the 
 thought that one foolish step should have changed 
 me from a prosperous and powerful member of the 
 bar into a fugitive. Often in earlier days I had 
 pitied the wretches who would come slinking into 
 our office after nightfall, empty their pockets of 
 gold and notes — taken often, no doubt, by force 
 or fraud from others — and pour it out before us, 
 begging for our aid to save them from punishment. 
 It seemed incredible to me that human beings 
 should have staked their liberty and often their 
 lives for a few wretched dollars. Outcasts, they 
 skulked through existence, forced, once they had 
 begun, to go on and on committing new crimes — 
 on the one hand to live, and on the other to pay 
 tribute to Gottlieb and myself, who alone stood be- 
 tween them and jail. How they had cringed to us. 
 We were their masters, cracking the lash of black- 
 
 193 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 mail across their shoulders and sharing equally, if 
 invisibly, in their crimes ! And how I had scorned 
 them — fools, as they seemed to me, to take such 
 desperate chances! Yet, as the sun rose, I now 
 saw myself as one of the beings whom I had so de- 
 spised. We were no longer their masters — they 
 were our masters! Hawkins had us in his power. 
 He alone could prevent us from donning prison 
 stripes. 
 
 Already the streets were beginning to stir. Wag- 
 ons rumbled along the pavements. Streams of 
 people emerged from the caverns of the east and 
 trudged westward across the city. I circled the 
 square and entered it from the lower side. My big 
 brick mansion, with its stone trimmings — the home 
 where I had held my revels and entertained my 
 friends, where I had worked and slept — ^was but a 
 stone's throw away. I strained my eyes to detect 
 any signs of the police; but the street was empty. 
 Then, pulling my hat down upon my head, I turned 
 up my coat-collar and, glancing from side to side, 
 hurried across the square and let myself in. 
 
 The household still slept. The air was close and 
 heavy with the perfume of roses and the reek of 
 dead cigars. On the floor of the entrance hall lay 
 a pair of women's white gloves, palms upward. 
 Beyond, through the open doors of the dining- 
 
 194 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 room, I could see the uncleared table, littered over 
 with half-empty bottles and glasses. An upset 
 chair reclined as it had fallen. Last night I had 
 been an envied host: to-day I was an outcast. 
 
 As I stood there, a shadow darkened the door- 
 way and with a leap of the heart I jumped behind 
 a portiere. Then, as the shadow remained and 
 knowing that in any event I was trapped, I threw 
 open the door. Gottlieb, with wild eyes peering 
 out of a haggard face, stood before me. Wfthout 
 a moment's hesitation, he dodged inside. 
 
 "Did you get it?" he almost shrieked. 
 
 "Yes," I answered faintly. "What are we to do?" 
 
 "For God's sake, give me something to drink!" 
 he cried. "I need it!" 
 
 1 led him to the sideboard and filled two glasses 
 with whiskey. 
 
 "Here's to crime!" I muttered, with a bitter 
 laugh. 
 
 Gottlieb shot a fierce look at me and his hand 
 shook so that I thought he would drop the tumbler; 
 but he poured the liquor down his throat and threw 
 himself into a chair. 
 
 "That fellow has us by the throat!" he groaned. 
 
 "We should have thought of that — " I began. 
 
 "Stop!" he gasped. "You can hold a post- 
 mortem later on. They haven't got us yet — and, 
 
 195 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 by God ! we've a long start. Once let us whip Haw- 
 kins out of the way and they're helpless ! I must 
 stay here to fight the case, but you, Quib, must take 
 this fellow where they'll never find him — ^Africa, 
 Alaska, Europe — anywhere! If you could drop 
 him over a precipice or off an ocean liner — so much 
 the better!" 
 
 For an instant we eyed each other keenly. Then 
 I shook my head. 
 
 "No," said I. "If it came to that I'd rather go 
 to jail." 
 
 It was now nearly seven o'clock and I felt faint 
 for something to eat; so I stumbled upstairs and 
 awakened my butler, who stared at me stupidly 
 when he saw me beside his bed in evening dress. 
 When I rejoined Gottlieb I found him examining 
 the morning paper, which a boy had just brought to 
 the front door. Across the first page in double- 
 headed type was printed: 
 
 THE DILLINGHAM DIVORCE AGAIN 
 
 Arthur P. Hawkins Indicted for Perjury 
 
 Extraordinary Disclosures Expected 
 
 Two Prominent Criminal Attorneys Said to be Involved 
 
 "They've raised the hue and cry already!" mut- 
 tered my partner, pointing to the paper. " Damn 
 
 196 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 them! How ready they are to turn on a man! 
 Think of all the stories I've given to these very 
 papers ! Stories worth thousands of dollars to 'em ! 
 And now — They're after our hearts' blood!" 
 
 While we were waiting for our breakfast he out- 
 lined his plan. We were to get Hawkins out of 
 town as soon as we had given bail for him. Of 
 course the railroads and ferries would be watched, 
 but we could manage somehow. I must take the 
 fellow where nobody would find him and keep him 
 there. If he ever were brought back and convicted 
 he would turn on us like a snake. Only while he 
 still hoped to escape prison could we count on his 
 co-operation. Meanwhile my partner would re- 
 main in the city and try to upset the indictment. 
 Anyhow, some one must stand guard over Dilling- 
 ham; for, if he lost his nerve and endeavored to 
 save himself by confessing his part in the affair, we 
 would be lost! 
 
 Gloomily we ate a few pieces of toast and swal- 
 lowed our coffee. Then I hastily changed my 
 clothes and accompanied Gottlieb to the Tombs, 
 to which Hawkins had been transferred the night 
 before. He was brought down to us in the counsel- 
 room, looking like a scared and sickly ghost. What 
 little spirit he had before had already vanished. I 
 have never seen a more wretched human creature. 
 
 197 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 His one dread was of going to prison; and together 
 we hastened to convince him that his only avenue 
 of escape lay through us. We pointed out to him 
 that so long as he stuck to the story we should pre- 
 pare for him he had nothing to fear; and, as evi- 
 dence of our power to protect him, we instanced the 
 fact that we had already secured fifty thousand dol- 
 lars' cash bail for him. At this he took much heart, 
 and even whistled a bit and begged us for a drink, 
 but we slapped him on the back and told him that 
 he could have anything he wanted once he was out- 
 side the Tombs — not before; so he gave us a cold, 
 slimy hand and promised to do precisely as we 
 wished. 
 
 Ten-thirty came and we both walked across to 
 Part One of the General Sessions, where for so 
 many years we had been monarchs of all we sur- 
 veyed. A great throng filled the room and many 
 reporters clustered around the tables by the rail, 
 while at the head of a long line of waiting prison- 
 ers stood the bedraggled Hawkins. Presently the 
 judge came in and took his seat and the spectators 
 surged forward so that the officers had difficulty 
 in preserving order. Somehow, it seemed almost 
 as if we were being arraigned ourselves — not ap- 
 pearing as counsel for another; but Gottlieb pre- 
 served his composure admirably and, when Haw- 
 
 198 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 kins's name was called, stepped forward, entered a 
 plea of not guilty for him and gave bail. We had 
 already deposited the money with the city chamber- 
 lain and Hawkins was immediately discharged, 
 pending his trial for perjury; but the tremendous 
 sum demanded as security and the fact that it was 
 immediately forthcoming for a prisoner who looked 
 as if he had not a cent in the world of his own, and 
 who was known to be a mere waiter in a restaurant, 
 caused a sensation throughout the court-room; and 
 as we forced our way to the street we were accom- 
 panied by a multitude, who jeered at the defendant 
 and occasionally took a fling at Gottlieb and my- 
 self. We still, however, were persons to be feared, 
 and few dared venture beyond making suggestive 
 allusions to our obvious desire to secure the im- 
 mediate liberty of our client. 
 
 So far we had no reason to believe that the dis- 
 trict attorney — a man of high integrity and unre- 
 lenting zeal in the discharge of his official duties — 
 had sought to tamper with Hawkins; but I instinc- 
 tively felt that, once he had an opportunity to offer 
 the latter personal immunity in return for a con- 
 fession which would implicate Gottlieb and myself 
 all would be over. As my partner had said, there 
 was only one thing to do — and that was to put it 
 out of our client's power to do us harm. The first 
 
 199 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 step in this direction was to get him hopelessly 
 drunk, and this we successfully did in a back room 
 of our office. 
 
 Both of us knew that a dozen pairs of eyes were 
 watching the entrance of the old-fashioned build- 
 ing in which our rooms were located, and that any 
 attempt on our part to get Hawkins out of the city 
 would result in his immediate arrest. Once he 
 were sent back to the Tombs he would be out of our 
 control. So, for three days, we kept him — a foul, 
 unwashed, maudlin thing — a practical prisoner, al- 
 though from his condition quite unconscious of it. 
 Day and night, turn and turn about, Gottlieb and 
 I watched while he snored and gibbered, cursed 
 an^ giggled; but the strain was getting too much 
 for both of us and we set ourselves at work to de- 
 vise a way to spirit him away. 
 
 Our offices were situated in a block the other side 
 of which consisted of tenement-houses. Investi- 
 gation showed that it would be possible to get over 
 the roofs, walk nearly the length of the block and 
 gain access to one of the more distant tenements 
 through a skylight. For the sum of fifty dollars 
 we found an Italian fruit-dealer who was willing 
 to hire himself, his rickety wagon, and his spavined 
 horse for our enterprise; and he agreed to carry 
 Hawkins concealed under piles of produce to a 
 
 200 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 point on Long Islnad, where we could take a ferry 
 across to one of the Connecticut towns. 
 
 The following night we arranged that a hack 
 should be drawn up early in the evening in front of 
 the entrance to the office, and bags and boxes were 
 brought out and piled upon the seat beside the 
 driver. We then half dragged, half lifted Hawkins 
 up the stairs and on to the roof by means of a shaky 
 ladder and conducted him across the leads to the 
 scuttle of the tenement-house. At this juncture, 
 by prearrangement, three of our clerks, one of 
 whom somewhat resembled Hawkins in size and 
 who was arrayed in the latter's coat and hat, rushed 
 out of the office and climbed into the hack, which> 
 at once set off at a furious gallop up Centre Street. 
 Coincidently Gottlieb and I escorted our still maud- 
 lin prisoner down the narrow stairs at the other end 
 of the block and cajoled him into getting into a 
 sack, which the Italian placed in the bottom of the 
 cart and covered with greens. I now put on a dis- 
 guise, consisting of a laborer's overalls and tattered 
 cap, while Gottlieb wheeled out a safety bicycle 
 which had been carefully concealed in the basement. 
 
 I had ten thousand dollars in the pocket of my 
 ragged trousers and a forty-four-calibre revolver at 
 my hip. Gottlieb drew me back into the shadow 
 and whispered harshly in my ear. 
 
 201 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 "Quib," said he, "this fellow must never come 
 back! — do you understand ? Once the district 
 attorney gets hold of him, it's all up with us! It's 
 Sing Sing for each of us — ten years of it! For 
 God's sake, hire somebody to put him out of the 
 way! — quietly. Many a man would take him off 
 our hands for a thousand or so." 
 
 I shuddered at the cold-blooded suggestion, yet 
 I did not utter one word of refusal, and must have 
 led Gottlieb to believe that I was of a mind with 
 him, for he slapped me on the shoulder and bade 
 me good luck. Good luck! Was ever a man of 
 decent birth and education forced upon such an 
 errand .? The convoying of a drunken criminal to 
 — where .? I knew not — somewhere whence he 
 could not return. 
 
 Thus I set forth into the night upon my bicycle, 
 my money bulging in my pocket, my pistol knock- 
 ing against the seat at every turn of the wheel, my 
 trousers catching and tearing in the pedals. At 
 last I crossed the bridge and turned into the wastes 
 of Queens. Gas-houses, factories, and rotting 
 buildings loomed black and weird against the sky. 
 I pedalled on and at last found myself upon a coun- 
 try road. I dared not ask my way, but luckily I had 
 stumbled upon the highway to Port Washington, 
 whence there was a ferry to the Connecticut shore. 
 
 202 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 As I stole along in the darkness, my ear caught far 
 ahead a voice roaring out a ribald song — and I 
 knew that the time had come to take personal 
 charge of my wretched client — the "old man of the 
 sea" that my own cupidity had seated upon my 
 shoulders. Soon I overtook them, the Italian stolidly 
 driving his weary horse and Hawkins sitting beside 
 him with the sack wrapped about his shoulders. I 
 halted them, threw my bicycle in among the vege- 
 tables, and climbed up to where they sat. Hawkins 
 gave a great shout of laughter when he saw who it 
 was and threwhis arm around my neck, but I pushed 
 him away and he nearly fell under the wheels. My 
 gorge rose at him! Yet to him I was shackled as 
 tightly as ever a criminal was to his keeper! 
 
 The thought of the remainder of that night 
 and of the ensuing three days and nights sickens 
 me even now. In the early dawn we crossed the 
 ferry with dozens of other produce-laden wagons 
 and landed on the opposite side of the Sound, 
 where we caught a local train for Hartford, I had 
 made no arrangements for communicating with 
 Gottlieb, and was in utter ignorance of whether or 
 not our escape had been discovered. We sat in the 
 smoking-car, Hawkins by this time ill and peevish. 
 The air was stifling, yet I could not, arrayed as I 
 was or in the company of my client, go into the 
 
 203 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 regular passenger coach. At Hartford we changed 
 for Springfield and I purchased a New York paper. 
 There was nothing in it relating to the case and I 
 breathed more easily; but, once in Springfield, I 
 knew not which way to turn, and Hawkins by this 
 time was crazy for drink and refusing to go farther. 
 I gave him enough liquor to keep him quiet and 
 thrust him on a way train for Worcester. Already 
 I had exhausted my small bills and when I tried to 
 cash one for a hundred dollars the ticket agent in 
 the station eyed me with suspicion. 
 
 That night we slept in a single bed, Hawkins and 
 I, in a cheap lodging-house — that is, he slept a sor- 
 did, drunken sleep, while I lay tossing and cursing 
 my fate until, burning with fever, I rose and drained 
 part of the water in the pitcher. Yet, in the early 
 morning hours there came to me the first ray of 
 hope throughout that dreary space since I had left 
 New York — the Quirks! The Quirks! Twenty 
 years had passed since I had heard from them. 
 They might be dead and gone long ago without my 
 knowing it; yet, were they alive, I felt that one or 
 other of them would hold out a friendly hand for 
 auld lang syne. Before daybreak, I stole forth, 
 hired a horse and buggy, asked the way to Methuen 
 and, rousing Hawkins, bundled him, whining and 
 fretting, into it. 
 
 204 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 Slowly we drove in the growing light through the 
 country lanes I had known and loved so well as a 
 lad — the farmland which was the only friendly 
 thing in my disconsolate boyhood. It was in the 
 early spring and the apple-trees along the stone 
 walls by the roadside were showered with cluster- 
 ing blossoms. Dandelions sprinkled the fields. 
 The cloud shadows slowly moved across rich past- 
 ures of delicate green. A sun-warmed, perfume- 
 laden breeze blew from the east, tinged with a keen 
 edge that sent the blood leaping in my temples. 
 Tiny pools stood in the ruts glinting blue toward 
 the sky. The old horse plodded slowly on and the 
 robins called among the elms that stood arching 
 over white farm-houses with blinds, some blue, 
 some green. 
 
 With a harrowing sense of helplessness, the reali- 
 zation of what I had thrown away of life swept over 
 me. I turned from the sodden creature beside me 
 in disgust. Hawkins had slumped back in his 
 seat, so that his head rested upon the hood, and 
 had fallen sound asleep, with his mouth wide open. 
 How I wished that I had the courage to strangle him 
 — and then it came to me that, after all, it was not 
 he who had ruined me, but I who had ruined him! 
 
 About noontime we came to a landscape that 
 seemed familiar to me, although more heavily 
 
 205 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 wooded and with many more farms than I remem- 
 bered; and at a turn in the road I recognized a 
 couple of huge elms that marked the site of the 
 homestead occupied in my boyhood by the Quirks. 
 There was the brook, the maple grove upon the 
 hill, the old stile by the pasture, and the long stone 
 wall beside the apple orchard, radiant with white. 
 Yet the house seemed to have vanished. My heart 
 sank, for somehow I had assumed that the Quirks 
 must still be living, just as they had always lived. 
 And now, as we drew near the turn, I saw that the 
 place where the homestead had stood was empty, 
 and all that remained was a heap of blackened stone 
 and brick thickly overgrown with brambles. 
 
 Fifty yards farther down the road we came upon 
 an old man sitting on the fence, smoking a pipe. 
 He wore a tattered old brown felt hat and overalls, 
 and his long gray hair and beard were tangled and 
 unkempt. I passed him the time of day and he an- 
 swered me civilly enough, although vacantly; and 
 I saw that his eye had the red film of the drunkard. 
 When I asked him for Quirk, the schoolmaster, 
 who used to live thereabout he gave a mirthless 
 chuckle. 
 
 "My name's Quirk," said he; "but it's fifteen 
 years since I taught school. How did you come 
 to know of me?" 
 
 206 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 Could this be Quirk? — this aged and decrepit 
 old man! Somewhere beneath that mat of hair 
 and beard, did there remain traces of those good- 
 natured lineaments that were wont to set the boys 
 in a roar ? I scanned his face closely. The man 
 was a stranger to my recollection. 
 
 "Do you remember me, Mr. Quirk?" I asked. 
 
 He peered out at me under his bushy brows and 
 slowly removed his pipe. 
 
 "Not to my knowledge," he answered. "What 
 might be your name ?" 
 
 "Quibble," I returned— "Artemas Quibble." 
 
 "Artemas Quibble!" he exclaimed in a faltering 
 voice and feebly crawled over to the buggy. 
 
 I climbed down to meet him and extended my 
 hand. 
 
 "What has happened to you?" he stammered. 
 "I thought you were a great lawyer in New York." 
 
 " I'm in a peck of trouble," I answered. " I need 
 all the friends I've got. I hope you're still one of 
 them ?" 
 
 "Well, well!" he muttered. "And to think that 
 you're Artie Quibble! And who may this be?" 
 pointing to Hawkins. 
 
 " I'll tell you all," said I, "later on. For the pres- 
 ent, he's a friend of mine who's travelling with me 
 — more on business than on pleasure." 
 
 207 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 Quirk's story was soon told. As I already sus- 
 pected, drink had become his master. The school 
 had fallen away, his wife had died, and in a fit of 
 despondency he had — he said accidentally, but I 
 believe intentionally — overturned a lamp and set 
 fire to the house. Now he lodged in a small hovel 
 farther down the road, living from hand to mouth, 
 and doing a day's work here and there when chance 
 offered. I gave him fifty dollars and bade him 
 good-bye, for he had no accommodations to offer us 
 even had I been able to induce Hawkins to remain 
 there. Thus I realized that the only refuge I ever 
 had from the outside world, the only real home I 
 had ever known, was gone. I had nowhere to gp, 
 nowhere to deposit ray evil load. 
 
 We drove on for a space, and now Hawkins 
 awoke and began to clamor for food. Where was 
 I taking him ? he demanded to know. And why 
 was I togged out like a bricklayer .? He announced 
 that he had had enough of this kind' of travelling 
 and insisted on going to a hotel and having a decent 
 meal. I tried to reason with him and explained 
 that it was only for a day or so, and that presently 
 we would go to Boston or some other city, where 
 he should have everything that money could buy. 
 But he leered at me and said he had had plenty of 
 promises already; that we had promised him that 
 
 208 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 he would get into no trouble if he signed his original 
 affidavit, and that, unless he were treated like a 
 gentleman, he would go back to New York and get 
 other lawyers. He must have seen me turn white 
 at his threat, for from that moment he held it over 
 me, constantly repeating it and insinuating that I 
 was not so anxious to save him as to save myself, 
 which, alas ! I could not gainsay. 
 
 Soon we came to a small town and here Hawkins 
 flatly refused to go farther. There was a hotel on 
 the main street, and th6 fellow clambered out of the 
 buggy and staggered into the bar and called loudly 
 for whiskey. There was nothing for it but to put 
 up the horse in the stable and do as my prisoner 
 demanded. So we had dinner together, Hawkins 
 talking in a loud, thick voice that made the wait- 
 resses and other guests stare at him and me as if we 
 were some sort of outlandish folk; and after the 
 meal was over he dragged me to the nearest clothier 
 and ordered new ready-made suits for both of us. 
 He had now imbibed much more than was good for 
 him; and when I took out my roll of bills to pay for 
 what we had bought he snatched it out of my hand 
 and refused to give it back. For a moment I al- 
 most surrendered myself to despair. I had had no 
 sleep for two nights, I was overwhelmed with morti- 
 fication and disgust, and here I was in a country 
 
 209 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 store pranked out like a popinjay, the keeper of a 
 half-crazy wretch who made me dance to any tune 
 he chose to pipe; but I pulled myself together and 
 cajoled Hawkins into leaving the place and giving 
 me back a small part of the money. 
 
 There was a train just leaving for Boston and my 
 companion insisted upon taking it, saying that he 
 proposed to spend the money that Dillingham had 
 so kindly furnished him with. I never knew just 
 how he discovered the part Dillingham was play- 
 ing in this strange drama; but if no one told him, 
 he at any rate divined it somehow, and from this 
 moment he assumed the lead and directed all our 
 movements. It is true that I persuaded him to go 
 to one of the smaller and less conspicuous hotels, 
 but he at once sent for another tailor, ordered an 
 elaborate meal for supper, with champagne, and 
 procured a box at one of the theatres, whither I was 
 obliged to escort him. Neither would he longer 
 permit me to occupy the same room with him — 
 precious privilege! — but engaged a palatial suite 
 for himself, with a parlor, while I had a small and 
 modest room farther down the hall. In some re- 
 spects this suited me well, however, since I was 
 now able to induce him to have his meals served 
 upstairs. Yet I began to see the fooUshness of 
 thinking that we could elude the police should they 
 
 2IO 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 set out to seek seriously for us, since, apart from 
 changing our names, we were making no effort at 
 disguising ourselves. 
 
 The day after our arrival, Hawkins slept late and 
 I slipped out about ten o'clock and wandering aim- 
 lessly came to Barristers' Hall, where twenty years 
 before old Tuckerman Toddleham had his office. 
 The day was warm and humid, like that upon 
 which so long ago I had visited the old lawyer 
 when a student at Harvard and had received from 
 him my sentence. Even as then, some birds were 
 twittering around the stone window-ledges. An 
 impulse that at the moment was beyond my control 
 led me up the narrow, dingy stairs to the landing 
 where the lawyer's office had been. A green-baize 
 door, likely enough the same one, still hung there — 
 and I pushed it open and entered. Naught about 
 the room was altered. There were the bookcases, 
 with their glass doors and green-silk curtains; the 
 threadbare carpet, the portrait of the Honorable 
 Jeremiah Mason over the fireplace; the old ma- 
 hogany desk; the little bronze paper-weight in the 
 shape of a horse; the books, brown and faded with 
 years; and at the desk — I brushed my hand across 
 my eyes — at the desk sat old Tuckerman Toddle- 
 ham himself! 
 
 For the first time in my entire existence, so far 
 
 211 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 as I can now remember, I was totally nonplussed 
 and abashed. I could not have been more aston- 
 ished had I walked into the family lot in the Salem 
 cemetery and found my grandfather sitting on his 
 own tombstone; but there the old lawyer surely 
 was, as certainly as he had been there twenty years 
 before; and the same sensations that I had always 
 experienced as a child when in his presence now 
 swept over me and made me feel like a whipped 
 school-boy. Not for the world would I have had 
 him see me and be forced to answer his questions 
 as to my business in the city of Boston; so, holding 
 my breath, I tiptoed out of the door, and the last 
 vision I everhad of him was as he sat there absorbed 
 in some legal problem, bending over his books, 
 the sunlight flooding the mote-filled air of the dusty 
 office, the little bronze horse standing before him 
 on the desk and the branches of the trees outside 
 casting flickering shadows upon the walls and book- 
 cases. Canny old man! He had never put his 
 neck in a noose ! I envied him his quiet life among 
 his books and the well-deserved respect and honor 
 that the world accorded him. 
 
 Ruminating in this strain, I threaded my way 
 through the crowd on Court Street, and was about 
 to return to my hotel, when to my utter horror I 
 beheld Hawkins, in all his regalia, being marched 
 
 212 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 down the hill between two business-like-looking 
 persons, who were unmistakably officers of police. 
 He walked dejectedly and had lost all his bravado. 
 There was no blinking the fact that in my absence 
 he had managed somehow to stumble into thehands 
 of the guardians of the law and was now in process 
 of being transported back to New York. 
 
 For a moment my circulation stopped abruptly 
 and a clammy moisture broke out upon my back 
 and forehead. Unostentatiously I slipped into a 
 cigar store and allowed the trio to pass me by. So 
 the jig was up! Back I must go, after my fruitless 
 nightmare with the wretch, to consult with my part- 
 ner as to what was now to be done. I reached the 
 city late that evening, but not before I had read in 
 the evening papers a full account of the apprehen- 
 sion of the fugitive, including my own part in his 
 escape; and it now appeared that the police had 
 been fully cognizant of all our doings, including the 
 manner of our abduction of Hawkins from our office. 
 They had, under the instructions of the shrewd dis- 
 trict attorney, simply permitted us to carry out our 
 plan in order to use the same as evidence against us 
 at the proper time, and had followed us every step of 
 the way to Worcester and on our drive to Methuen. 
 
 My heart almost failed me as I thought of how 
 foolish I had been to undertake this desperate jour- 
 
 213 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 ney myself, instead of sending some one in my place 
 for by so doing I had stamped myself as vitally in- 
 terested in my client's escape. Fearful to go to my 
 own home, lest I should find myself in the hands 
 of the police, I spent the night in a lodging-house 
 on the water-front, wondering whether Hawkins had 
 already made his confession to the district attorney 
 in return for a promise of immunity; for I well 
 knewthat such a promise would be forthcoming and 
 that Hawkins was the last man in the world to neg- 
 lect the opportunity to save himself at our expense. 
 Next morning I telephoned Gottlieb and met 
 him by appointment at a hotel, where we had a 
 heated colloquy, in which he seemed to think that 
 I was totally to blame for the failure of our at- 
 tempt. He was hardly himself, so worn out was 
 he with anxiety, not having heard from me until he 
 had read of Hawkins's apprehension in Boston; but, 
 now that I was able to talk things over with him, we 
 agreed that any effort to spirit our client away would 
 have been equally unsuccessful, and that the one 
 course remaining for us to pursue was to put on as 
 bold a front as possible and let the law take its 
 course. It was equally useless for us to try to con- 
 ceal our own whereabouts, for all our movements 
 were undoubtedly watched; and the best thing to 
 do, it seemed to us, was to go as usual to our office 
 
 214 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 and to act as nearly as possible as if nothing had 
 happened. 
 
 We were not mistaken as to the intended course 
 of the district attorney; for, when we visited the 
 Tombs for the purpose of interviewing Hawkins, 
 we were informed by the warden that he had ob- 
 tained other counsel and that our services were no 
 longer required. This was an indisputable indica- 
 tion that he had gone over to the enemy; and we 
 at once began to take such steps as lay in our power 
 to prepare for our defence in case an indictment 
 was found against us. And now we were treated 
 to a dose of the medicine we had customarily ad- 
 ministered to our own clients; for, when we tried 
 to secure counsel, we found that one and all insisted 
 upon our paying over in advance even greater sums 
 as retainers than those which we had demanded in 
 like cases. I had never taken the trouble to lay by 
 anything, since I had always had all the ready cash 
 I needed. Gottlieb was in the same predicament, 
 and in our distress we called upon Dillingham to 
 furnish us with the necessary amount; but, to our 
 amazement and horror, our erstwhile client refused 
 to see us or come to our office, and we definitely 
 realized that he, too, had sought safety in con- 
 fession and would be used by the prosecution in 
 its effort to place the crime of perjury at our door. 
 
 215 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 From the moment of Hawkins's rearrest the tide 
 turned against us. There seemed to be a general 
 understanding throughout the city that the district 
 attorney intended to make an example in our case, 
 and to show that it was quite as possible to convict 
 a member of the bar as any one else. He certainly 
 gave us no loophole of escape, for he secured every 
 witness that by any possibility we might have called 
 to our aid, and even descended upon our office with 
 a search-warrant in his effort to secure evidence 
 against us. Luckily, however, Gottlieb and I had 
 made a practice of keeping no papers and had care- 
 fully burned everything relating to the Dillingham 
 case before I had left the city. 
 
 The press preserved a singular and ominous 
 silence in regard to us, which lasted until one morn- 
 ing when a couple of officers appeared with bench- 
 warrants for our arrest. We had already made ar- 
 rangements for bail in the largest amount and had 
 secured the services of the ablest criminal attorneys 
 we knew, so that we were speedily released; but, 
 with the return of the indictments charging us with 
 suborning the testimony of Hawkins, the papers 
 began a regular crusade against us. The evening 
 editions carried spectacular front-page stories re- 
 counting my flight to Boston, the entire history of 
 the Dillingham divorce, biographies of both Gott- 
 
 216 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 Heb and myself, and anecdotes of cases in which we 
 had appeared and notorious criminals whom we 
 had defended. And in all this storm of abuse and 
 incrimination which now burst over our heads not 
 a single word appeared in mitigation of our alleged 
 offence. 
 
 It seemed as if the entire city had determined to 
 wreak vengeance upon us for all the misdeeds of 
 the entire criminal bar. Even our old clients, and 
 the police and court officers who had drawn pay 
 from us, seemed to rejoice in our downfall. Every 
 man's hand was against us. The hue and cry had 
 been raised and we were to be harried out of town 
 and into prison. At every turn we were forced to 
 pay out large sums to secure the slightest assistance; 
 our clerks and employees refused longer to work 
 for us, and groups of loiterers gathered about the 
 office and pointed to the windows. Our lives be- 
 came a veritable hell, and I longed for the time 
 when the anxiety should be over and I should know 
 whether the public clamor for a victim were to be 
 satisfied. 
 
 Gottlieb and the lawyers fought stubbornly every 
 inch of the defence. First, they attacked the valid- 
 ity of the proceedings, entered demurrers, and made 
 motions to dismiss the indictments. These mat- 
 ters took a month or two to decide. Then came 
 
 217 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 motions for a change of venue, appeals from the 
 decisions against us to the Appellate Division, and 
 other technical delays; so that four months passed 
 before, at last, we vpere forced to go to trial. By 
 this time my health had suffered; and when I 
 looked at myself in the glass I was shocked to find 
 how gaunt and hollow-cheeked I had grown. My 
 hair, which had up to this time been dark brown, 
 had in a brief space turned quite gray over my ears, 
 and whatever of good looks I had ever possessed 
 had vanished utterly. Gottlieb, too, had altered 
 from a jovial, sleek-looking fellow into a nervous, 
 worried, ratlike little man. My creditors pressed 
 me for their money and I was forced to close my 
 house and live at a small hotel. The misery of 
 those days is something I do not care to recall. 
 We were both of us stripped, as it were, of every- 
 thing at once — money, friends, health, and position; 
 for we were the jest and laughing-stock of the very 
 criminals who had before our downfall been our 
 clients and crowded our office in their eagerness to 
 secure our erstwhile powerful assistance. Our day 
 was over! 
 
 It was useless to try to escape from the meshes of 
 the net drawn so tightly around us. Even if we 
 could have forfeited our heavy bail — which would 
 have been an impossibility, owing to-the watchful- 
 
 218 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 ness of our bondsman — we could never have eluded 
 the detectives who now dogged our footsteps. We 
 were marked men. Everywhere we were pointed 
 out and made the objects of comment and half- 
 concealed abuse. The final straw was when the 
 district attorney, in his anxiety lest we should slip 
 through his fingers, caused our rearrest on a 
 trumped-up charge that we were planning to leave 
 the city, and we were throwm into the Tombs, being 
 unable to secure the increased bail which he de- 
 manded. Here we had the pleasure of having 
 Hawkins leer doWn at us from the tier of cells 
 above, and here we suffered the torments of the 
 damned at the hands of our fellow prisoners, who, 
 to a man, made it their daily business and pleasure 
 to render our lives miserable. Gottlieb wasted 
 away to a mere shadow and I became seriously ill 
 from the suffocating heat and loathsome food, for 
 it was now midsummer and the Tombs was 
 crowded with prisoners waiting until the courts 
 should open in the autumn to be tried. 
 
 We were called to the bar together — Gottlieb and 
 I — to answer to the charge against us in the very 
 court-room where my partner had won so many 
 forensic victories and secured the acquittal of so 
 many clients more fortunate than he. From the 
 outset of the case everything went against us; and 
 
 219 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 it seemed as if judge, prosecutor, and jury were 
 united in a conspiracy to deprive us of our rights 
 and to railroad us to prison. Even when impanel- 
 ling the jury, I was amazed to find the prejudice 
 against criminal lawyers in general and ourselves 
 in particular; for almost every other talesman 
 swore that he was so fixed in his opinion as to our 
 guilt that it would be impossible to give us a fair 
 trial. 
 
 At last, however, after several days a jury of 
 twelve hard-faced citizens was sworn who asserted 
 that they had no bias against us and could give us a 
 fair trial and the benefit of every reasonable doubt. 
 Fair trial, indeed! We were convicted before the 
 first witness was sworn! Convicted by the press, 
 the public, and the atmosphere that had been stirred 
 up against us during the preceding months. And 
 yet, one satisfaction remained to me, and that was 
 the sight of Hawkins and Dillingham on the grill 
 under the cross-examination of our attorneys. Dil- 
 lingham particularly was a pitiable object, shaking 
 and sweating upon the witness chair, and forced to 
 admit that he had paid Gottlieb and me thirty-five 
 thousand dollars to get him an annulment so that 
 he could marry the woman with whom he was now 
 living. The court-room was jammed to the doors 
 with a curious crowd, anxious to see Gottlieb and 
 
 220 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 me on trial and to learn the nature of the evidence 
 against us; and when our client left the stand — a 
 pitiful, wilted human creature — and crawled out 
 of the room, a jeering throng followed him down- 
 stairs and out into the street. 
 
 The actual giving of evidence occupied but two 
 days, the chief witness next to Hawkins being the 
 clerk who swore the latter to his affidavit in my 
 office. This treacherous rascal not only testified 
 that Hawkins took his oath to the contents of the 
 paper, but at the same time had told me that it was 
 false. The farce went on, a mere formal giving of 
 testimony, until at length the district attorney an- 
 nounced that he had no more evidence to offer. 
 
 "You may proceed with the defence," said the 
 judge, turning to our counsel. 
 
 I looked at Gottlieb and Gottlieb looked at me. 
 The trial had closed so suddenly that we were taken 
 quite unawares and left wholly undetermined what 
 to do. We had practically no evidence to offer in 
 our behalf except our own denials of the testimony 
 against us; and if once either of us took the stand 
 we should open the door to a cross-examination at 
 the hands of the district attorney of our entire lives. 
 For this cross-examination he had been preparing 
 for months; and I well knew that there was not a 
 single shady transaction in which we had partici- 
 
 221 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 pated, not one attempt at blackmail, not a crooked 
 defence that we had interposed that he had not in- 
 vestigated and stood prepared to question us about 
 in detail. 
 
 "What shall we do?" whispered Gottlieb ner- 
 vously. "Do you want to take the stand ?" 
 
 "How can we ?" I asked petulantly. "If we did 
 we should be convicted — not for this but for every 
 other thing we ever did in our lives. Let's take a 
 chance and go to the jury on the case as it stands." 
 
 After consulting with our counsel, the latter 
 agreed that this was the best course to pursue; and 
 so, rising, he informed the court that in his opinion 
 no case had been made out against us and that we 
 should, therefore, interpose no defence. This an- 
 nouncement caused a great stir in the court-room, 
 and I could see by the faces of the jury that it was 
 all up with us. I had already surrendered all hope 
 of an acquittal and I looked upon the verdict of the 
 jury as a mere formality, 
 
 " Proceed, then, with the summing up," ordered 
 the judge. " I wish the jury to take this case and 
 finish it to-night." 
 
 So, with that, our counsel began his argument in 
 our behalf — a lame and halting effort it seemed to 
 me, for all that we had paid him twenty-five thou- 
 sand dollars for his services — pointing out how 
 
 222 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 neither Dillingham nor Hawkins was worthy of 
 belief, and how the case against us rested entirely 
 upon their testimony and upon that of the clerk, 
 who was an insignificant and unimportant witness 
 injected simply for the sake of apparent corrobora- 
 tion. Faugh ! I have heard Gottlieb make a bet- 
 ter address to the jury a thousand times, and yet 
 this man was supposed to be one of the best! Some- 
 how throughout the trial he had seemed to me to 
 be ill at ease and sick of his job, a mere puppet in 
 the mummery going on about us; yet we had no 
 choice but to let him continue his ill-concealed plea 
 for mercy and his wretched rhetoric, until the judge 
 stopped him and said that his time was up. 
 
 When the district attorney arose and the jury 
 turned to him with uplifted faces, then, for the first 
 time, I realized the real attitude of the community 
 toward us; for in scathing terms he denounced us 
 both as men not merely who defended criminals 
 but who, in fact, created them; as plotters against 
 the administration of justice; as arch-crooks, who 
 lived off the proceeds of crimes which we devised 
 and planned for others to execute. It was false and 
 unfair; but the jury believed him — I could well see 
 that. 
 
 "These men have made a fat living for nearly a 
 generation in this city by blackmail, bribery, and 
 
 223 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 perjury. They have made a business of ruining 
 homes, reputations, and the lives of others. They 
 have directed the operations of organized bands of 
 criminals. They are the Fagins of the city of New 
 York. Once the poor and defenceless have fallen 
 into their power, they have extorted tribute from 
 them and turned them into the paths of crime. 
 Better that one of them should be convicted than 
 a thousand of the miserable wretches ordinarily 
 brought to the bar of justice!" 
 
 And in this strain he went on until he had bared 
 Gottlieb and myself to our very souls. When he 
 concluded there was a ripple of applause from the 
 spectators that the court officers made little attempt 
 to subdue; and the judge began his charge, which 
 lasted but a few minutes. What he said was fair 
 enough, and I had no mind to quarrel with him, 
 although our counsel took many exceptions. The 
 jury retired and my partner and I were led down- 
 stairs into the prison pen. It was crowded with 
 miserable creatures waiting to be tried — negroes 
 and Sicilians, thieves and burglars — who took 
 keen delight in jostling us and foretelling what long 
 sentences we should receive. One negro kicked 
 me in the shins and cursed me for being a shyster, 
 and when I protested to the keeper he only laughed 
 at me. 
 
 224 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 About half an hour later an officer came to the 
 head of the stairs and shouted down : 
 
 "Bring up Gottlieb and Quibble!" 
 
 Our keeper unlocked the pen and, followed by 
 the execrations of our associates, we stumbled up 
 the stairs and into the court-room. Slowly we 
 marched around to the bar, while every eye was 
 fixed upon us. The jury were already back in the 
 box and standing to render their decision. The 
 clerk rapped for order and turned to the foreman. 
 
 "Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon 
 a verdict?" he intoned. 
 
 "We have," answered the foreman unhesitat- 
 ingly. 
 
 "How say you, do you find the defendants guilty 
 or not guilty?" 
 
 "We find both of them guilty!" replied the fore- 
 man. 
 
 A slight shiver passed through Gottlieb's little 
 body and for a moment the blood sang in my ears. 
 No man can receive a verdict of guilty unperturbed, 
 no matter how confidently expected. The crowd 
 murmured their approval and the judge rapped for 
 silence. 
 
 "Are you ready for sentence ?" asked the judge. 
 
 We nodded. It was useless to prolong the 
 agony. 
 
 225 
 
The Confessions of 
 
 "I have nothing to say to you," remarked the 
 judge, "in addition to what the district attorney has 
 said. He has fully expressed my own sentiments 
 in this case. I regard you as vampires, sucking the 
 blood of the weak, helpless, and criminal. Mercy 
 would be out of place if extended toward you. I 
 sentence you both to the full limit which the law 
 allows — ten years in State's prison at hard labor." 
 
 An officer clapped us upon the back, faced us 
 round toward the rear of the court-room, and 
 pushed us toward the door leading to the prison 
 pen, while another slipped a handcuff on my right 
 wrist and snapped its mate on Gottlieb's left. 
 
 "Get on there," he growled, "where you be- 
 long!" 
 
 The crowd strained to get a look at us as, with 
 averted faces, we trudged toward the door leading 
 to the prison pen. Our lawyers had already has- 
 tened away to avoid any reflected ignominy that 
 might attach to them. The jurymen were shaking 
 hands with the district attorney. 
 
 "Adjourn court!" I heard the judge remark. 
 
 With a whoop, the spectators in the court-room 
 crowded upon our heels and surged up to the grat- 
 ing before the door. 
 
 "There's Gottlieb!" cried one. "The Httle 
 fellow!" 
 
 226 
 
Artemas Quibble 
 
 "And that's Quibble — the pale chap with the 
 thin face!" said another. 
 
 "Damn you! Get out of the way!" I shouted 
 threateningly. 
 
 "There go the shysters!" retorted the crowd. 
 "Sing Sing's the best place for them!" 
 
 The keeper opened the door and motioned back 
 the spectators. I staggered through, shackled to 
 my partner and dragging him along with me. As 
 the door clanged to I heard some one say: 
 
 "There goes the last of the firm of Gottlieb & 
 Quibble!" 
 
 227