LAWYER GOOCH bestowed his undivided attention upon the engrossing arts of his profession.But one flight of fancy did he allow his mind to entertain.He was fond of likening his suite of office rooms to the bot-tom of a ship.The rooms were three in number, with a door opening from one to another.These doors could also be closed.
"Ships," Lawyer Gooch would say, "are constructed for safety, with separate, water-tight compartments in their bottoms.If one compartment springs a leak it fills with water; but the good ship goes on unhurt.Were it not for the separating bulkheads one leak would sink the vessel.Now it often happens that while I am occu-pied with clients, other clients with conflicting interests call.With the assistance of Archibald -- an office boy with a future -- I cause the dangerous influx to be diverted into separate compartments, while I sound with my legal plummet the depth of each.If neces-sary, they may be haled into the hallway and permitted to escape by way of the stairs, which we may term the lee scuppers.Thus the good ship of business is kept afloat;whereas if the element that supports her were allowed to mingle freely in her hold we might be swamped -- ha, ha, ha!
The law is dry.Good jokes are few.Surely it might be permitted Lawyer Gooch to mitigate the bore of briefs, the tedium of torts and the prosiness of processes with even so light a levy upon the good property of humour.
Lawyer Gooch's practice leaned largely to the settle-ment of marital infelicities.Did matrimony languish through complications, he mediated, soothed and arbi-trated.Did it suffer from implications, he readjusted, defended and championed.Did it arrive at the extremity of duplications, he always got light sentences for his clients.
But not always was Lawyer Gooch the keen, armed, wily belligerent, ready with his two-edged sword to lop off the shackles of Hymen.He had been known to build up instead of demolishing, to reunite instead of severing, to lead erring and foolish ones back into the fold instead of scattering the flock.Often had he by his eloquent and moving appeals sent husband and wife, weeping, back into each other's arms.Frequently he had coached childhood so successfully that, at the psychological moment (and at a given signal) the plaintive pipe of "Papa, won't you turn home adain to me and muvver?"had won the day and upheld the pillars of a tottering home.
Unprejudiced persons admitted that Lawyer Gooch received as big fees from these revoked clients as would have been paid him had the cases been contested in court.
Prejudiced ones intimated that his fees were doubled.
because the penitent couples always came back later for the divorce, anyhow.
There came a season in June when the legal ship of Lawyer Gooch (to borrow his own figure) was nearly becalmed.The divorce mill grinds slowly in June.It is the month of Cupid and Hymen.
Lawyer Gooch, then, sat idle in the middle room of his clientless suite.A small anteroom connected -- or rather separated -- this apartment from the hallway.
Here was stationed Archibald, who wrested from visitors their cards or oral nomenclature which he bore to his master while they waited.
Suddenly, on this day, there came a great knocking at the outermost door.
Archibald, opening it, was thrust aside as superfluous by the visitor, who without due reverence at once pene-trated to the office of Lawyer Gooch and threw himself with good-natured insolence into a comfortable chair facing that gentlemen.
"You are Phineas C.Gooch, attorney-at-law?" said the visitor, his tone of voice and inflection making his words at once a question, an assertion and an accusation.
Before committing himself by a reply, the lawyer esti-mated his possible client in one of his brief but shrewd and calculating glances.
The man was of the emphatic type -- large-sized, active, bold and debonair in demeanour, vain beyond a doubt, slightly swaggering, ready and at ease.He was well-clothed, but with a shade too much ornateness.He was seeking a lawyer; but if that fact would seem to saddle him with troubles they were not patent in his beaming eye and courageous air.
"My name is Gooch," at length the lawyer admitted.
Upon pressure he would also have confessed to the Phineas C.But he did not consider it good practice to volunteer information."I did not receive your card," he continued, by way of rebuke, "so I -- ""I know you didn't," remarked the visitor, coolly;"And you won't just yet.Light up?" He threw a leg over an arm of his chair, and tossed a handful of rich-hued cigars upon the table.Lawyer Gooch knew the brand.He thawed just enough to accept the invitation to smoke.
"You are a divorce lawyer," said the cardless visitor.
This time there was no interrogation in his voice.Nor did his words constitute a simple assertion.They formed a charge -- a denunciation -- as one would say to a dog:
"You are a dog." Lawyer Gooch was silent under the imputation.
"You handle," continued the visitor, "all the various ramifications of busted-up connubiality.You are a surgeon, we might saw, who extracts Cupid's darts when he shoots 'em into the wrong parties.You furnish patent, incandescent lights for premises where the torch of Hymen has burned so low you can't light a cigar at it.
Am I right, Mr.Gooch?"
"I have undertaken cases," said the lawyer, guardedly, "in the line to which your figurative speech seems to refer.
Do you wish to consult me professionally, Mr.-- "The lawyer paused, with significance.
"Not yet," said the other, with an arch wave of his cigar, "not just yet.Let us approach the subject with the caution that should have been used in the original act that makes this pow-wow necessary.There exists a matrimonial jumble to be straightened out.But before I give you names I want your honest -- well, anyhow, your professional opinion on the merits of the mix-up.
