We have all heard the most scandalous and groundless stories about lawyers;--of opinions delivered concerning the genuineness of a half sovereign, followed by the deduction of six-and-eightpence for the advice;--of thirteen-and-fourpence charged for "attending, consulting, and advising," when the occasion was a splendid dinner given by the client--followed by a demand on the angry client's part for wine had and consumed--and this succeeded in turn by an information against the said client for selling wine without a licence. These, and a thousand such libels, we can all remember; but the reality above recorded is at least as striking as the most ingenious of such fictions.
To contrast with the non-success of this wily experiment upon a grand scale, we may cite an instance of equal ingenuity, exercised in a much humbler walk, and taking the form of knavery in its mixed character. We distinctly remember it to have happened. The scene may be a seaport, or the banks of the Thames below bridge. A seaman, bearing a huge stone bottle, applies at the Nelson's Head for a gallon of whisky for Captain Rope of the Matilda, lying off shore--to fill up the bottle already half full. The spirit is duly poured in, and the cash demanded. "Oh! the capp'n said nothen about that"--the whisky was to be added to his account, and that was all he knew. But "mine host" did not know the captain well enough, and couldn't let the whisky go. The gallon was therefore poured back again into the landlord's measure, and set aside to be called for. So far there appeared to be no knavery at all; but the spirit so poured back, presently turned out to be, not whisky, but excellent _one-water grog_; for the two-gallon bottle of the sailor contained exactly one gallon of pure water when it was brought in, and one gallon of pure whisky and water when it was taken out.
The means in this, as in myriads of cases, are curiously disproportioned to the end. How miserably poor is the prize, considered in reference to the risk; to the cleverness in the invention of the stratagem; to the address demanded for the due execution of it, to the time consumed, the trouble taken, the agencies employed! But the truth is, that the very cleverest rascals are rarely more than half-cunning. The ablest of knaves must be at best half a blockhead. When we remember how the great Bardolph, having stolen a lute-case, "carried it twelve miles and sold it for three half-pence," the perilous, profitless, toilsome, half-witted nature of roguery needs no illustration. One would like to have seen him walking back, thirsty and way-wearied, under a broiling sun, and never sure but that the lady who once owned the lute-case might be walking that way too!