CHAPTER XVI.

"Doubtless the pleasure is as great

Of being cheated, as to cheat."-BUTLER.

YET it is a pleasure which in duty to our clients, we must deny ourselves, however profitable may be the litigation into which they sometimes cheat us.

I have already hinted that the statements of an angry client are never to be received for gospel. It was long before I discovered this, and yet longer before I also found that his witnesses are rarely to be trusted at all! The mistake is very natural: in the first place one feels strangely predisposed to place implicit faith in an honest fellow who gives the best possible proof of sound judgment in choosing you as his adviser; and then, one's pocket sympathies are wonderfully excited in his behalf, (especially if the case is a heavy one,) and after all, he must know his own affairs

better than we can do! Moreover, when it does happen that ex superabundanti cautela, we ask him for his proofs, there never is any lack of evidence. "Mr. Johnson is a witness! he heard every syllable! and Mr. Atkins managed the whole business, and can vouch for everything!" The next day he brings Mr. Johnson and Mr. Atkins, and they do vouch for everything, and in the state of excitement under which they see their employers labor, would willingly vouch for ten times more if necessary, and find twenty other witnesses to back them. No wonder if the attorney is deeply impressed with the conviction that all is true and accurate! especially when the bare intimation of a doubt will be interpreted into the lie direct, and resented as a serious insult by the client, who came good-naturedly to employ him! Hence the writ is issued, retainers are given, and it is not till the eve of trial, when costs to a large amount have been incurred on both sides, that the attorney begins to think it strange that so clear a case should be so resolutely defended; he again catechizes his client, who by this time has become calm; and their employer being calm, the clerks become doubt

ful, whereupon the "very clear case" becomes as hazy as the city in November, and the only obvious point remaining is, that the notice of trial should be countermanded, and the costs taxed and paid! Mutatis mutandis, the same result still oftener happens on the defendant's side. When, however, the excitement has subsided, and the sober certainty of costs only occupies the mind, it is rare indeed to find a client possessed of that amiable disposition, that he will admit having had "value received" in the sympathizing credulity with which his attorney listened in the first instance to the tale of his supposed wrongs: on the contrary, he blames you behind your back, and reproaches you to your face for "not having set him right," forgetting that had you even attempted it, at a moment when he would not believe the possibility of his being wrong, he would have made a quarrel of it, and gone elsewhere for advice!

An absurd blunder of this kind once occurred to me, which, though of trifling pecuniary amount, will serve to illustrate my meaning. A friend who resided at a considerable distance from town had a quantity of old

family plate, which he wished to be cleaned and repaired by a London jeweler. He transmitted the plate chest, with a large parcel of papers, separately packed up, to his agent, with directions to leave the plate chest at the jeweler's, and retain the papers. These directions were literally complied with as regarded the plate, but not having a convenient place to deposit the papers in, he sent them to the jeweler's along with the chest. After two or three months, the plate was sent home, and the jeweler at the same time returned the paper parcel to the agent. My country friend on arriving in town, a considerable time after, applied to the agent for the papers which he had sent to him; the parcel was delivered up, but on opening it some turnpike bonds were missed! The agent declared he had never received them, nor even opened the parcel beyond removing the outside envelope. A violent altercation ensued, in which my client used the terms "thief," and "swindler," somewhat emphatically, and was, therefore, somewhat emphatically kicked out of the agent's chambers. In the full tide of fury he came to me, attended by his servant.

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"I have been robbed, Mr. Sharpe! robbed and kicked! yes, actually kicked, Mr. Sharpe ! haven't I, John?"

"Sure you have, Sir!" answered the groom. "Robbed! kicked! what do you mean! was it in the street?"

"Master was kicked into the street, Sir, sure enough!"

"Ay, Mr. Sharpe! kicked into the street by the ruffian that robbed me."

"What, in open day! we must go to Bow street; tell me the facts while my clerk calls a coach."

But on hearing the circumstances as above detailed, it occurred to me that even the charge of embezzlement could scarcely be sustained, though I entertained no doubt that the man had sold or pledged the bonds, especially when after another minute search, everything else was discovered in the parcel. My client had brought his servant with him to confirm his statement, and John swore stoutly that he had packed the plate chest, and made up the parcel himself. He had grown up in his master's service from childhood, and I checked a suspicion that flashed across my mind, that he