Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 19.pdf/187

 1 64

THE GREEN BAG

long after there is any necessity for it) expresses itself on this wise: "Mr. Bellicose, our case unfortunately must be tried before Judge Way Up, an arrogant political accident. However, I have reversed him several times in the Supreme Court, and he has considerable respect for me. " Or in this fashion: "Judge Baloon, I regret to say, is not dirigible. He is a man of unbending prejudices. His decisions are about as clear as a time table to a woman. But my experience is that when the essential X-rays of a proposition are liberated from the encumbering data, and are set to vibrating, they generally penetrate the opaque head piece of Judge Baloon." These identical observations, vigorously announced, pro duce, as I can solemnly attest, the most profound results. Nothing short of the day of trial will efface them. They may be taken by the young lawyers as models and moulded to fit the local situation. Should the case in hand be one fraught with grave danger, there is another remark that will act as a saline injection to your depressed client. You may say: "My great fear in this case is due to the fact that Judge Blunderbuss is likely to try it. He could not comprehend the law were it hypodermically administered. It takes a grape and shrapnel preface to an argument to wake him up, and then your proposition must be made as clear as Mother Goose' Melodies." At such a juncture this obser vation is most diplomatic. It steadies your client's knees, prepares him for a shock, and, best of all, affords you a kind of stage door exit from responsibility, when the foreman of the jury solemnly declares, "We the jury on the issues joined, find for the defendant" (your adversary). But this remark, like all studied remarks, needs a little stage setting to give it strength. I, therefore, suggest to the young lawyer that a valise be kept in his office, with his books, and green bag, and silk hat, and other stage properties. A valise at times is an impressive thing, if thoughtfully brought

upon the scene. It causes your client to think about you most decorously. It straightway occurreth to him that you have just returned from Washington where you may have argued the case of your neighbor Mr. Bucket Shopper, whose Fourteenth Amendment privileges were lately so men aced; or he cogitateth immediately that you have just returned from New York, where no one goes save on big business. And should his face show that he cerebrateth not at all about you, you can help him by saying "I have just returned from New York, or Wash ington, or Chicago." This is the oldest place of legal stage property in the world. The vigorous use of centuries has left no trace upon it. The lawyers of the little Persian Satrapies used to say, "Ah, Mr. Nabob, glad to see you, I have just returned from Bagdad," whereupon Mr. Nabob looketh bigeyed and wonderously. This remark, then, is as historical as it is proper. A client, ner vous about your prowess, is simply put in a trance by its timely use. It is a balm, a healing lotion, a sovereign soporific to that I-fear-you-ought-have-associate-counsel feeling that sometimes distresses clients and gives cold feet to their counsel whose calibre is being taken. Getting a law practice is a great drama, sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, few cases and many sloughs of despond. The office is your stage, you the actor, and there are no crowded houses: but the one man audi ence is watching you. So be sure you have the spittoon hidden, your unpaid bills in a drawer, law books lying about suggestively open, valise handy, a ready tongue speak ing contemptously of Courts, a proud con versational swing, a readiness to speak of "grave constitutional questions" (but al ways speak slowly at this point); and, lo, shortly you will reach your office in a Limousine Car from whose sumptuous cushions you will be privileged to give your friends the soulless stare of modern life. Cincinnati, Ohio, February, 1906.