Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/202

 THE LIGHTER SIDE those across the car seemed to watch me ad just my glasses and prepare to read the even ing paper — it was the bag! I strode along with firmer stride — a sensational step, and my very friends, who at times seemed careless of my presence or approach, now nodded pleasant greeting — it was the bag! To the conductor, who heretofore had asked my fare with nudge and grunt, now seemed to ask almost with reverence — it was the bag! I was now a lawyer, and as visibly impor tant as a policeman. With that bag beneath my arm I felt like an honorary vice-president at a continuous Republican rally. I strode about majestically, diffusing dignity. Ye spir its of the illustrious legal dead, accept my thanks for this badge so generously provided for briefless legal youth, when no business comes to bring publicity, and when no one seems to know or care for you, when your thrice pronounced name leaves no impression, when no one looks to say, " Ah, there he is; his speech acquitted Smith." But the bag is passing, just as private seals and wigs and Bible-kissing on taking the oath have passed. The age looks for utility and comfort. Seals were troublesome; wigs redhot, and Bible-kissing, like other kissing, un sanitary. They had to go. But the bags' decline is slow, for it has a measure of utility. It may still serve to suggest to the public merger documents, pompous instruments, be ing carried home for midnight work, while actually the repository of lunch or laundry or wife's stockings being returned for ex change. But even the public is getting more sensible and men's faces are generally too busily buried in the evening police news to look up and admiringly regard the " Hon. Tweedledee, who just knocked out the Smith bill," or to contemplate the visible judicial dignity of " Judge Tweedledum, who declared unconstitutional the eight-hour law for bak ers." So bags don't count as formerly. How much can you show up in a pinch? — not what you wear — is the great question of this advanced age. But we are bidding the bag a sorrowful adieu, for it has helped us much, and it is the last impressive vestige of that polite humbuggery for which our profession has been accorded an eternal franchise. — The Law Book News.

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Perley's Opinion and Price. — Chief justice Ira Perley, after his retirement from the Bench, opened an office in Concord, N. H. He was a man of the strictest integrity, and his indignation would be aroused whenever he scented a fraud. One day a man called upon him for advice and set forth the facts which showed that he had craftily worked a net around another, the circumstances of which he seemed to delight in. After he had fin ished, he asked the judge what his opinion was. The judge jumped up, and, with great emphasis, said: " What is my opinion? My opinion is that you are an infernal scoundrel. Five dollars." Witness would Begin Again. — The follow ing incident will be appreciated by lovers of the absurd, especially in the legal profession. Many years ago, during a trial by jury in the town of Enosburg, Vt., a witness was being questioned by one of the lawyers, and as he became very much mixed in his replies, he hesitated for some time, appearing to be at his wits' ends. Suddenly he exclaimed: " Scratch out all I have said, and I'll begin again." How Judge Peters Collected. — Some years ago a claim was placed in the hands of the late Judge Peters of Bangor, Me., against a man who was never known to pay his bills. The usual notice to call and settle to avoid costs, etc., was sent out, and the man called and said he would pay the account the next Saturday night, when he was paid off. The judge said: " Now, don't say you will pay Saturday night unless you mean to; just take a few more days and be sure. Say you will pay next Wednesday." "All right," said the man, " if I live until next Wednesday I will pay that bill." Wednesday came, but no man appeared to settle the bill, whereupon the judge wrote out a notice of the death of the man and put it in the daily paper. The next day the bill was settled. — Boston Herald. TINEA TORQUET [NOTE: Whether the following is another gentle roast at your most obedient, he refuses to consider, but it sounds well and deserves immortality and so we will not be sensitive. Ed-]

If the lego literary worm (tinea), that earns a precarious living grubbing among local law