“Mike and I have a little difference of opinion, on a point connected with this matter, which I could wish you to settle for us, as an arbiter. On the supposition that you find reason to believe that this young woman has really committed these horrible crimes, what would be your duty in the case—to continue to befriend her, and advise her, and use your experience and talents in order to shield her against the penalties of the law, or to abandon her at once?” “In plain English, Jack, you and your brother student wish to know whether I am to act as a palladium, or as a runagate, in this affair. As neophytes in your craft, it may be well to suggest to you, in the first place, that I have not yet been fee’d. I never knew a lawyer’s conscience trouble him about questions in casuistry, until he had received something down.” “But you can suppose that something paid, in this case, sir, and then answer our question.” “This is just the case in which I can suppose nothing of the sort. Had McBrain given me to understand I was to meet a client, with a well-lined purse, who was accused of arson and murder, I would have seen him married to two women, at the same time, before I would have budged. It’s the want of a fee that takes me out of town, this morning.” “And the same want, I trust, sir, will stimulate you to solve our difficulty.” The uncle laughed, and nodded his head, much as if he would say, “Pretty well for _you_;” then he gave a thought to the point in professional ethics that had started up between his two students. “This is a very old question with the profession, gentlemen,” Dunscomb answered, a little more gravely. “You will find men who maintain that the lawyer has, morally, a right to do whatever his client would do; that he puts himself in the place of the man he defends, and is expected to do everything precisely as if he were the accused party himself. I rather think that some vague notion, quite as loose as this, prevails pretty generally among what one may call the minor moralists of the profession.” “I confess, sir, that I have been given to understand that some such rule _ought_ to govern our conduct,” said Michael Millington, who had been in Dunscomb’s office only for the last six months. “Then you have been very loosely and badly instructed in the duties of an advocate, Mr. Michael. A more pernicious doctrine was never broached, or one better suited to make men scoundrels. Let a young man begin practice with such notions, and two or three thieves for clients will prepare him to commit petit larceny, and a case or two of perjury would render him an exquisite at an affidavit. No, my boys, here is your rule in this matter: an advocate has a _right_ to do whatever his client has a _right_ to do—not what his client _would_ do.” “Surely, sir, an advocate is justified in telling his client to plead not guilty, though guilty; and in aiding him to persuade a jury to acquit him, though satisfied himself he ought to be convicted!”