After he had salted away about forty thousand dollars some of the purchasers began to get anxious about their dividends. None were forthcoming, and as the promoter was inclined to be indefinite as to future prospects he was presently arrested. But when the case came to trial I pointed out a fact that, strange as it may seem, practically no one of the multitude of stockholders had previously noticed, namely, that the circulars made no actual statement _as to where the railroad was located_. By inference it might well have been supposed to be somewhere in Canada, but there was no such fact clearly alleged. Of course it was impossible for the prosecutor to prove that my client did not own a railroad _somewhere_ in the world and the indictment had to be dismissed. Negations are extremely hard to establish, and therein lies the promoter's safety. If he sticks to generalizations, no matter how they glitter, he is immune. Had my railroad promoter inserted a single word descriptive of the location of his franchise or his terminals he would now be in Sing Sing instead of owning a steam yacht and spending his winters in Florida. From the foregoing the reader will observe that the first-class criminal lawyer by no means devotes his time to defending mere burglars and "strong-arm" men. The elite of the profession do as gilt-edged an office practice as the most dignified corporation attorneys. Indeed, in many respects their work is strictly identical. CHAPTER V The firm of Gottlieb & Quibble had not been long established before --quite by chance--a new vista of opportunity opened before us. My partner had a wretched client who, not unlike many others, would go to more pains and trouble to steal a dollar than it would have taken him to earn twenty. This, I have noticed, is a general peculiarity of lawbreakers. The man's name was McDuff and my partner had defended him on several occasions and had got him off, with the result that he was always hanging about the office and asking if this and that were "within the law." One fine day he was arrested on the charge of having obtained money by false premises in an unique manner. It appeared that he had learned through a certain bar-tender that one Jones, a patron of the place, had but recently come into a legacy of a couple of hundred dollars and, in connection therewith, had imbibed so freely that he had become involved in a fist fight with a gentleman by the name of Holahan and had done the latter considerable facial damage. McDuff pondered upon these facts for some time over his beer and then set out to find Jones--not a difficult task, as the legatee was making a round of all the near- by saloons and endeavoring to drink up his good fortune as rapidly as possible. Overtaking him in a side street McDuff grasped him roughly by the shoulder.