assault, robbery, theft, and homicide cases. Most
of these our clerks attended to, but the murder cases Gottlieb
defended in person, and in this he was so singularly successful
that there was hardly a celebrated trial in which he was not retained
in some capacity or other. For he was an adept in all those little
arts that make a jury feel well disposed toward a lawyer, and as
a word artist he was unsurpassed. Gottlieb could, I believe, have
wrung tears from a lump of pig iron, and his own capacity to open
the floodgates of emotion was phenomenal. He had that rare and
priceless gift shared by some members of the theatrical profession
of being able to shed real tears at will. His sobs and groans were
truly heart-rending. This, as might be expected, rendered him
peculiarly telling in his appeals to the jury, and he could frequently
set the entire panel snivelling and wiping their eyes as he pictured
the deserted home, the grief-stricken wife, and the starving children
of the man whom they were asked to convict. These unfortunate
wives and children were an important scenic feature in our defence,
and if the prisoner was unmarried Gottlieb had little difficulty
in supplying the omission due to such improvidence. Some buxom
young woman with a child at the breast and another toddling by her
side could generally be induced to come to court for a few hours
for as many dollars. They were always seated beside the prisoner,
but Gottlieb was scrupulous to avoid any statement that they
_belonged_ to the client. If the jury chose to _infer_ as much
that was not our fault. It was magnificent to hear (from the wings)
Gottlieb sum up a case, his hand, in which was concealed a pin,
caressing the youngest little one.

"Think, gentlemen, of the responsibility that rests upon you in
rendering this woman a widow and depriving this poor innocent babe
of a father's protecting love!"

Here Gottlieb would hiccough out a sob, sprinkle a few tears upon
the counsel table, and gently thrust the pin into the infant's
anatomy. Sob from Gottlieb--opportune wail from the baby. Verdict
--not guilty.

There was a certain class of confidence men for whom we soon became
the regular attorneys. They were a perennial source of delight as
well as profit, and much of my time was given up to the drafting
of circulars and advertisements for the sale of stock in such form
that, whereas they contained no actual misstatement of an existing
fact, th