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
Ten-thirty came and we both walked across to Part One of the General
Sessions, where for so many years we had been monarchs of all we
surveyed. A great throng filled the room and many reporters
clustered around the tables by the rail, while at the head of a
long line of waiting prisoners stood the bedraggled Hawkins.
Presently the judge came in and took his seat and the spectators
surged forward so that the officers had difficulty in preserving
order. Somehow, it seemed almost as if we were being arraigned
ourselves--not appearing as counsel for another; but Gottlieb
preserved his composure admirably and, when Hawkins's name was
called, stepped forward, entered a plea of not guilty for him and
gave bail. We had already deposited the money with the city
chamberlain and Hawkins was immediately discharged, pending his
trial for perjury; but the tremendous sum demanded as security and
the fact that it was immediately forthcoming for a prisoner who
looked as if he had not a cent in the world of his own, and who
was known to be a mere waiter in a restaurant, caused a sensation
throughout the court-room; and as we forced our way to the street
we were accompanied by a multitude, who jeered at the defendant
and occasionally took a fling at Gottlieb and myself. We still,
however, were persons to be feared, and few dared venture beyond
making suggestive allusions to our obvious desire to secure the
immediate liberty of our client.
So far we had no reason to believe that the district attorney--a
man of high integrity and unrelenting zeal in the discharge of his
official duties--had sought to tamper with Hawkins; but I instinctively
felt that, once he had an opportunity to offer the latter personal
immunity in return for a confession which would implicate Gottlieb
and myself all would be over. As my partner had said, there was
only one thing to do--and that was to put it out of our client's
power to do us harm. The first step in this direction was to get
him hopelessly drunk, and this we successfully did in a back room
of our office.
Both of us knew that a dozen pairs of eyes were watching the entrance
of the old-fashioned building in which our rooms were located, and
that any attempt on our part to get Hawkins out of the city would
result in his immediate arrest. Once he were sent back to the
Tombs he would be out of our control. So, for three days, we kept
him--a foul, unwashed, maudlin thing--a practical prisoner, although
from his condition quite unconscious of it. Day and night, turn
and turn about, Gottlieb and I watched while he snored and gibbered,
cursed and giggled; but the strain was getting too much for both
of us and we set ourselves at work to devise a way to spirit him
away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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