THE LIGHTER SIDE other mistake. I seem to be inoculated with dullness to-day." "Inoculated, brother?" said Mr. Appleton, "I thought you had it in the natural way." 'SQUIRE W , of undoubted German par entage, was for a number of years an Alder man of Allegheny City, Pa. His honesty and fair dealing were unquestioned, but his judg ments were sometimes based more upon his own notions of justice than upon any recog nized legal principles. An action in trespass was once on trial before him, which the attorney for the de fendant argued should properly have been trespass on the case, over which the Alderman would have no jurisdiction. Defendant's coun sel made a strong speech to convince "the court" that the case must be dismissed, and in support of his position, produced a volume of Pennsylvania Supreme Court reports, from which he read at great length a decision of the state's highest court in a case on all fours with the case at issue. 'Squire W listened impatiently to the reading of the law. When the defendant's attorney closed, he rendered his decision: "De Supreme Court iss one court, und dis is anodder court. Dey gifs deir decisions und I gifs my decisions. I gif judgment for de plaintiff." THE VICARIOUS POTTER IP you had told William Potter when he came to the city one day that he was about to become the tool of a scheming lawyer and the means of freeing a possibly guilty man from the clutches of the law and well merited punishment, he would have scornfully scouted the idea, and, although not ordinarily a man of wrath and lurid words, would have un doubtedly poured upon your devoted head the choicest collection of Biblical and other wise forceful phrases of which any of the most tongue-gifted of his cow-boys was capable. Not that Mr. Potter was of habit a man of multitudinous words or mountainous pas sion. On the contrary, he was usually re served, discreet of words and action, a cattle man of extensive means, respected and respectable, a believer in and observer of the laws of his country, a despiser of those that
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broke them. No cow-boys of his could "paint the town red" or "play horse" with him, much less a lawyer. So a suggestion that he could be used to defeat the law by any feethirsty lawyer that ever ' ' piled precedent upon precedent," persuaded a judge, or cajoled a jury would have led to the use of a vocabulary enlarged by the most vivid examples of the cattle range and the gestures of a master of strenuosity. But Mr. Potter did not thus comport him self, as he did not then know that he was soon to be used in that very identically objectionable way as will more fully presently appear. This was the way of it. On the very day that William came to town his old friend and school-mate, Martin Dolbin, was, for a wonder, in a very serious dilemma, an unusual condition for a lawyer of his experience and expedients. For what Dolbin didn't know about the "tricks of the trade" wasn't worth knowing. He had been mixed up in politics and was acquainted with all kinds of men and their methods. He had served as prosecuting or state's attorney of his county and appeared for and against municipal railroad and other corporations. He was at home in civil and criminal trial law and the ways thereof. He was an easy fellow to get acquainted with, but a difficult one to beat in a law suit. He was "well-to-do" in worldly goods but hard "to do" when one endeavored to get the best of him. But this was his present fix. A certain client of his, defendant under indictment for a serious crime, now out under heavy bail was dead drunk down town and his case set for trial forthwith. He had run the gamut of motions and applications for continuances. He did not care to put his client's condition in evidence. What he should do under these peculiar circumstances was really worrying him and agitating his "gray matter" as never before. At this particular juncture, following his usual custom of calling upon his friend and former chum when in town, William Potter appeared upon the scene. "Mighty glad to see you, old fellow," was Dolbin's greeting to him as he entered the lawyer's private office. There was nothing
