The Lake County times. [volume] (Hammond, Ind.) 1906-1933, 1907-03-02

IN lawyer now, ana all the boys ana 7
girls of our acquaintance so to him /
with their troubles YEN see him /
with a murder case to try before long |
as sure as ye're not worth yer salt!
But 1 expect We can still call him by
his name of Joe, all the samer'
1t was a bleak and meager little Of
fee into which Mr. Fear ushered him
self to offer his amends. The cracked !
plaster Of the walls was bare, save for
dust. There were no shelves. The fat
brown volumes, most of them fairly
new, were piled in regular columns
upon cheap pine table. There was
but one window, small paned and
shadeless. An inner door of this sad
chamber stood half ajar, permitting
the visitor unreserved acquaintance
with the domestic economy of the ten
ant, for it disclosed a second room,
smaller than the Office and dependent
upon the window Of the latter for air
and light. Behind a canvas camp cot
dimly visible in the obscurity of the
inner apartment, stood a small gas
stove surmounted by a stewpan, from
which projected the handle of big
tin spoon, so that 1t needed no ghost
from the dead to whisper that Joseph
Louden, attorney at law, did his own
cooking. Indeed, he looked it!
Upon the threshold Of the second
room reposed a small, worn, light
brown scrub brush of a dog, so cosmo-
politan in ancestry that his species was
oil dor tho IL f1n oc%
iron dogs of the Pike mansion. He
greeted Mr.. Fear Hospitality, having
been so lately an offcast of the streets
himself that his adoption had taught
him to lose only his old tremors, not
his hopefulness. At the same time Joe
rose quickly from the deal table. where
be had been working, with one hand in
his hair. the other splattering ink from
a bad pen.
Good for you, Happy" he cried
cheerfully 81 hoped you'd come to
see me today. I've been thinking about
a job for you"
Il don't want a job, nohowp' said
Mr. Fear, going to the door. Il don't
want to work. There's plenty ways fer
me to git along without that. But I'll
say one thing more. Don't you worry
about gittin' law practice. Mike says
you're goin' to git all you want, and if
there amt no other way, why, a few
of us'll go out and make some fer vel"
These prophecies and promises, over
which Joe chuckled at first, with his
head cooked to one side, grew very
soon, to his amaZement, to wear q SUI
pernatural similarity to actual fulfill
ment. His friends brought him their
own friends such as had s1nned against
the laws of Canaan, those under the
ban Of the sheriff those who had
struck in anger, those who had stolen
at night, those who owed and could
not pay, those who lived by the dice,
and to his other titles to notoriety was
added that of defender of the poor
and wicked. He found his hands full,
especially after winning his first i'm
portant case, on which occasion Ca
naan thought the jury mad and was in
| dignant with the puzzled judge, who
could not see just how it had happened.
Joe did not stop at that. He kept on
winning cases, clearing the innocent and
| Tightening the burdens Of the guilty.
He became the most dangerous at
torney for the defense in Canaan. His
honorable brethren. accepting the pop
ular view of him, held him in personal
contempt. but feared him profession
ally, for he proved that he knew more
| law than they thought existed Nor
could any trick him, failing which
many tempers were lost, but never
Joe's His practice was not all crimi-
nal, as shown by the peevish outburst
| of the eminent Buckalew (the squire s
nephew, esteemed the foremost lawyer
in Canaan), Before long there won't
be any use trying to foreclose a mort
gage or collect a note unless this shy.
/ ster gets himself in jailp'
The wrath Of Judge Martin Pike was
august-there was a kind Of sublimity
in It's immenseness-on a day when il
befell that the shyster stood betwixt
him and money.
/ That was q monstrous taSk-to STAND
between these two and separate them
| to hold back the hand of Martin Pike
from what it had reached out to grasp
1t was in the matter of some tax title:
which the magnate had acquired, anC
in court Joe treated the case with SucI
horrifying simplicity that it seemed al
most credible that the great man haC
counted upon the ignorance and be
sottedness Of Joe's client, a hard drink
ing, disreputable old farmer, TO get biz
land away from him without payin:
for it. Now, as every one knew sucl
a thing to be ludicrously impossible, i
was at once noised abroad in Canaan
that Joe had helped to swindle Judg
Pike out of large sum of money!
was notorious that the shyster coult