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A Sensible Lawyer

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Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 29, 1883

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 9, No. 13.

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A Sensible Lawyer.

SQUIRE JOHNSON was a model lawyer, as the anecdote will show.
Jones once rushed into the squire's office in a great passion, and said: "That scoundrel of a cobbler, Smith, has sued me for five dollars for a pair of boots."
"Then you owe him five dollars."
"To be sure I do, but he's gone and sued me—sued me!"
"Then why don't you pay him, if you owe him?"
"Because he sued me; when a man does that I'll never pay him till it costs him more than he gets. I want you to make it cost him all you can."
"But it will cost you something too."
"I don't care for that. What do you charge to begin with?"
"Ten dollars, and more if there is much extra trouble."
"All right. There's the X. Now go ahead."
No sooner was the client gone than Squire Johnson stepped across to his neighbor, Smith, and offered to pay the bill on condition that the suit was withdrawn. The shoemaker gladly accepted—all he wanted was his pay. The lawyer retained the other five for his fee, and as the case was not troublesome, he made no demand upon his client.
Ten days after, Jones came to see how his case was getting on.
"All right," said the lawyer; "you won't have any trouble about that. I put it to Smith so strongly that he was glad to withdraw the suit altogether."
"Capital!" cried out the exulting Jones. "You have done it brown! You shall have all my business hereafter."