The Confessions of Artemas Quibble: Being the Ingenuous and Unvarnished History of Artemas Quibble, Esquire, One-Time Practitioner in the New York Criminal Courts, Together with an Account of the Divers Wiles, Tricks, Sophistries, Technicalities, and Sundry Artifices of Himself and Others of the Fraternity, Commonly Yclept "Shysters" or "Shyster Lawyers"Train, Arthur Cheney
General
The Confessions of Artemas Quibble: Being the Ingenuous and Unvarnished History of Artemas Quibble, Esquire, One-Time Practitioner in the New York Criminal Courts, Together with an Account of the Divers Wiles, Tricks, Sophistries, Technicalities, and Sundry Artifices of Himself and Others of the Fraternity, Commonly Yclept "Shysters" or "Shyster Lawyers"
Train, Arthur Cheney
Attorney and client -- Fiction; Legal stories; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction
The "Human Dog" was but a clever variation of the "Crust-Thrower"
--the beggar who tosses a dirty crust of bread into the gutter when
no one is looking and then falls upon it with a cry of fierce joy.
These "crust-throwers" have plied their trade for over six hundred
years and were known in England and Flanders long before the
discovery of America. Gottlieb was very shrewd at devising schemes
that came just within the law and used to amuse himself by so doing
in his leisure moments. One of the best--the idea which he sold
for three hundred dollars and which is still being used in New
York, Chicago, and elsewhere--is the following:
An old man, with a square of plate glass in a newspaper and a bundle
of glass-cutter's tools by his side is seen sitting dejectedly on
a curb with his head in his hands. He has no coat and the icy wind
blows through his straggling locks of gray hair--a pathetic picture.
He seems utterly discouraged, but no word of complaint passes his
lips. Presently a well-dressed woman approaches and her pity is
instantly aroused. She accosts him, and the aged one informs her
in a faint voice that he works in Harlem and has been sent by his
boss to set a pane of glass on Varick Street; but not knowing
exactly where Varick Street is, he has got off the elevated at
Fifty-ninth Street and finds that he is still several miles from
his destination. What woman, unless she had a heart of granite,
would not be moved by such a tale! She opens her purse and pours
its contents into his lap; for it is a psychological truth that,
if you can once get a woman up to the point of giving anything,
she will give all that she has. How often have I seen these old
men--the children of Gottlieb's brain--sitting patiently and silently
on the streets! And how often have they paid us handsome fees to
get them out of the "jug"!
In this catalogue of clients I must not forget "Banana Anna," who
recently, I am sad to say, met her Waterloo. Anna was a lady so
peculiarly gifted by the Almighty that she was able at will to
simulate a very severe physical mishap. I shall not describe with
any greater degree of particularity what her precise affliction
was, save to say that if genuine it would have entitled her to the
sympathy and generosity of mankind. It was the kind of thing that
might easily result from a fall; but which, in fact, under ordinary
circumstances gave her no inconvenience whatever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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