ch is boldly asserted and plausibly
maintained," and that lawyers, like the Roman augurs of old, always
smile when they meet one another on the street. The by no means
exalted opinion of two men as to "our noble profession" will appear
from the following.

A few days after Knott was admitted to the bar, he was sitting
alone in his office, waiting for clients, when a one-gallowsed,
awkward-looking fellow from the "brush" walked in without ceremony,
dropped into the only vacant chair, and inquired: "Air you a
lawyer, mister?" Assuming the manner of one of the regulars, Knott
unhesitatingly answered that he was. "Well," said the visitor, "I
thought I would drap in and git you to fetch a few suits for me."
Picking up his pen with the air of a man with whom suing people
was an everyday, matter-of-course sort of affair, Knott said: "Who
did you wish to sue?" To which--with a prolonged yawn--the
prospective client drawled out: "I ain't particular, Mister, I
jest thought I'd get you to pick out a few skerry fellows _that
would complemise easy!"_

The remaining incident is an experience of my own, when, at the
age of twenty-two, I had hung out my sign in the then county-seat of
Old Woodford.

My first client had retained me to obtain a divorce because of
abandonment during the two years last past by the sometime partner
of his joys and sorrows. The bill for divorce was duly filed; but
on "the coming in of the answer," a continuance of the suit, for
cause shown, was granted to the defendant.

At an early hour on the morning thereafter, my client called, and I
soon discovered he was in a frame of mind by no means joyous. The
disappointment he expressed at the continuance of his suit was
evidently sincere. My explanation of the impossibility of preventing
it, and the confident hope I held out that he would certainly
get his divorce at the next term, evidently gave him little relief.
He at length intimated a desire to have a confidential talk with
me. I took him into my "private office" (that has a professional
sound, but as a matter of fact my office had but one room, and that
was "open as day" to everybody) and assured him that whatever he
said to me would be in the strictest confidence. Feeling that I
was on safe ground, I now spoke in a lofty tone of the sacred
relation existing between counsel and client, and that any
communication he desired to make would be as safe as within his
own bosom, "or words to that