ADVENTURES OF AN ATTORNEY IN SEARCH OF PRACTICE. Sharpe Est enim hæc, judices, non scripta sed nata lex: quam non didicimus, LONDON: SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET. 22465,89.25 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY THE GIFT OF FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY Jan 8,1930 London: J. Rider, Printer, 14, Bartholomew Close. 1592 43-202 45 PREFACE. I WAS just finishing the revise of my penultimate sheet, when my publisher sent me word that he wanted a title page and a preface! This is "a little too bad;" there is not a page that does not contain the title, and as to a preface, I cannot for the life of me, see the use of it. I have stated in my last chapter, my object in writing the work, and if my readers have not patience to read it to the end, their powers of endurance are not likely to be improved by giving them twenty pages of preliminary nonsense! I therefore decline a preface; but I will offer a substitute in the way of dedication, though this propitiatory trouble is not so well remu nerated as it used to be in days of yore, when a dedication felicitously written, would pay ten times better than even a novel of Walter Scott's in modern times! I will take my chance, however, and respectfully inscribe my volume To all Attornies who want A Client, AND To all Clients who want An Attorney. ADVENTURES, &c. CHAPTER I. "Quos clientes nemo habere velit."-CIC. THERE is something vastly agreeable in the first day of a professional life; clerkship, servitude, and drudgery are all at an end; one no longer asks the hour, with sore consciousness of being too late for office, or dire misgivings of having been inquired for; and racking one's wits in vain for some new excuse, not yet exhausted, of "gone to the Temple," "examining an abstract,” or “serving a notice!" I was in such a desperate hurry to begin, that though I had not a client nor the dream of one, and was filled with lofty ambition to do the thing well, and start with all the magnificence of a house, I had not patience to wait B |