“Yessuh,” replied the negro.  “De las’ time, Jedge, you rec’lect, you was mah lawyuh.”

“Where is your lawyer this time?”

“I ain’t got no lawyer dis time,” said Henry.  “Ah’s gwine to tell de troof.”

“Pa, what is a retainer?”

“What you pay a lawyer before he does any work for you, my son.”

“Oh, I see.  It’s like the quarter you put in the gas-meter before you get any gas.”

After a young lawyer had talked nearly five hours to a jury, who felt like lynching him, his opponent, a grizzled old veteran, arose, looked sweetly at the judge, and said: 

“Your honor, I will follow the example of my young friend who has just finished, and submit the case without argument.”—­Life.

A Chicago business man, with many relatives, some of whom were well-to-do but grasping, recently sought the services of his lawyer to draw up his will.  When, after much labor, the document was completed, the client asked: 

“Have you fixed this thing, as I wished it, tight and strong?”

“I have done my best,” said the lawyer.

“Well,” continued the client, “I want to ask you another thing—­not professionally, however.  As a friend, and man to man, who do you think stands the best chance of getting the property when I am gone?”

The attorneys for the prosecution and defense had been allowed fifteen minutes each to argue the case.  The attorney for the defense had commenced his argument with an allusion to the old swimming-hole of his boyhood days.  He told in flowery oratory of the balmy air, the singing birds, the joy of youth, the delights of the cool water—­

And in the midst of it he was interrupted by the drawling voice of the judge: 

“Come out, Chauncey,” he said, “and put on your clothes.  Your fifteen minutes are up.”

It is related that when Judge Benjamin Toppan of Ohio, who died in the early ’70s, applied for admission to the bar of that state he was asked just two questions.  “Mr. Toppan, what is law?” was the first of these.

“An unjust distribution of justice,” replied the applicant.

“What is equity?” was the second.

“A damned imposition upon common sense!”

He was received into the brotherhood with open arms.

MAGNATE—­“I give that lawyer ten thousand dollars a year to keep me out of jail.”

“Oh, John!  Please stop spending your money so foolishly.”—­Life.

When General Beck was a young lawyer a man was arraigned for murder and had no counsel.

“Mr. Beck,” said the presiding judge, “take the prisoner into that room at the rear of the court, hear his story, and give him the best advice you can.”

Accordingly Beck disappeared with the prisoner, and in half an hour’s time returned into court—­alone.

“Where is the prisoner?” asked the judge.

“Well,” replied Beck, slowly, “I heard his story, and then I gave him the best advice I could.  I said:  ’Prisoner, if I were you I’d get out of that window and make tracks.’  He slid down the water-pipe, and the last I saw of him he was getting over a stone wall half a mile away.”