Severely unostentatious was that office, with its two ink-stained desks,
shelves of lettered deed-boxes, glass case of law-books in sheep, and
vellum-covered reading-table in the centre of the room. Its prompt
lesson for the visitor was: You are now in the Office of an old-school
Constitutional Lawyer, Sir; and if you want an Absolute Divorce,
Obtained for No Cause, in Any State; No Publicity; No Charges; you must
step around to a certain newspaper sanctum for your witnesses, and apply
to some other legal practitioner. In this establishment, sir, after you
have left your measure in the shape of a retaining fee, we fit you with
a suit warranted to last as long as you do. We cut your pockets to suit
ourselves, but furnish you as much choler as you can stand. If you are a
pursey man the suit will have no lack of sighs for you; if you are thin,
it will make your waste the greater.
Mr. DIBBLE'S usual companion in this office was his clerk, BLADAMS, who
generally wrote at the second desk, and, consequently, was a person of
another deskscription. A politician in former days--when he was known as
Mr. WILLIAM ADAMS--this clerk had aspired to office in New York, and
freely spent his means to attain the same. His name, however, was too
much for his fortune. Public credulity revolted from the pretence that a
WILLIAM ADAMS had come from Ireland some years before, on purpose to
found the family of which the later candidate of the same name claimed
to be a descendant; and, after an election in which he had spent the
last of his money, he was "counted out" in favor of a rather hod
character named O'GLOORAL.
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