"Where is your lawyer?" asked the judge who presided.
"I have none, sir," replied the prisoner.
"Why not?" queried the judge.
"Because I have no money to pay one."
"Do you want a lawyer?" asked the judge.
"Yes, sir."
"Well, there are Mr. Thomas W. Wilson, Mr. Henry Eddy, and Mr. George Rogers," said the judge, pointing to several young attorneys who were sitting in the room, waiting for something to turn up, "and Mr. Allen is out in the hall."
The prisoner looked at the attorneys, and, after a critical survey, he turned to the judge and said:
"If I can take my choice, sir, I guess I"ll take Mr. Allen."--_A.S.
Hitchc.o.c.k_.
"What is that little boy crying about?" asked the benevolent old lady of the ragged boy.
"Dat other kid swiped his candy," was the response.
"But how is it that you have the candy now?"
"Sure I got de candy now. I"m de little kid"s lawyer."
A man walking along the street of a village stepped into a hole in the sidewalk and broke his leg. He engaged a famous lawyer, brought suit against the village for one thousand dollars and won the case. The city appealed to the Supreme Court, but again the great lawyer won.
After the claim was settled the lawyer sent for his client and handed him one dollar.
"What"s this?" asked the man.
"That"s your damages, after taking out my fee, the cost of appeal and other expenses," replied the counsel.
The man looked at the dollar, turned it over and carefully scanned the other side. Then looked up at the lawyer and said: "What"s the matter with this dollar? Is it counterfeit?"
Deceive not thy Physician, Confessor nor Lawyer.
A Sergeant of the Lawe, war and wys Ther was also, ful riche of excellence.
Discreet he was, and of greet reverence: He seemed swich, his wordes weren so wyse.
No-wher so bisy a man as he ther nas, And yet he seemed bisier than he was.
--_Chaucer_.
LAZINESS
A tourist in the mountains of Tennessee once had dinner with a querulous old mountaineer who yarned about hard times for fifteen minutes at a stretch.
"Why, man," said the tourist, "you ought to be able to make lots of money shipping green corn to the northern market."
"Yes, I otter," was the sullen reply.
"You have the land, I suppose, and can get the seed."
"Yes, I guess so."
"Then why don"t you go into the speculation?"
"No use, stranger," sadly replied the cracker, "the old woman is too lazy to do the plowin" and plantin"."
While the train was waiting on a side track down in Georgia, one of the pa.s.sengers walked over to a cabin near the track, in front of which sat a cracker dog, howling. The pa.s.senger asked a native why the dog was howling.
"Hookworm," said the native. "He"s lazy."
"But," said the stranger, "I was not aware that the hookworm is painful."
""Taint," responded the garrulous native.
"Why, then," the stranger queried, "should the dog howl?"
"Lazy."
"But why does laziness make him howl?"
"Wal," said the Georgian, "that blame fool dawg is sittin" on a sand-bur, an" he"s too tarnation lazy to get off, so he jes" sets thar an" howls "cause it hurts."
"How"s times?" inquired a tourist.
"Oh, pretty tolerable," responded the old native who was sitting on a stump. "I had some trees to cut down, but a cyclone come along and saved me the trouble."
"Fine."
"Yes, and then the lightning set fire to the brush pile and saved me the trouble of burnin" it."
"Remarkable. But what are you going to do now?"
"Oh, nothin" much. Jest waitin" for an earthquake to come along and shake the potatoes out of the ground."