ays fer me to git along without that.
But I've said what I come here to say, and 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 ain't no other way, why, a few of us 'll
go out and MAKE some fer ye!"

These prophecies and promises, over which Joe chuckled at first, with
his head cocked to one side, grew very soon, to his amazement, to wear
a supernatural similarity to actual fulfilment. His friends brought
him their own friends, such as had sinned 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 important case--on which occasion
Canaan thought the jury mad, and was indignant 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 lightening the burdens of the guilty; he became the most
dangerous attorney for the defence in Canaan; his honorable brethren,
accepting the popular view of him, held him in personal contempt but
feared him professionally; 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 criminal,
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 mortgage or collect a
note--unless this shyster gets himself in jail!"

The wrath of Judge Martin Pike was august--there was a kind of
sublimity in its immenseness--on a day when it befell that the shyster
stood betwixt him and money.

That was a 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. It was in the matter of some tax-titles which the magnate
had acquired, and, in court, Joe treated the case with such horrifying
simplicity that it seemed almost credible that the great man had
counted upon the ignorance and besottedness of Joe's client--a
hard-drinking, disreputable old farmer--to get his land away from him
without paying for it. Now, as every one knew such a thing to be