stand up. I don't want him to come back here in six months
sniveling to be put in shape again. He disgusts me. He makes me sick. I
feel like ordering him off the place, and I do, and that's the end of
him. Let him go and bamboozle somebody else. I've shown him all I know.
There's no mystery. He can do as much for himself, once he's been here,
as I can. If he won't, well and good. And I'm saying one thing more:
There's one man here to whom this particularly applies today. This is
his last call. He's been here twice. When he goes out this time he can't
come back. Now see if some of you can remember some of the things I've
been telling you."

He subsided and opened his little pint of wine.

Another day while I was there he began as follows:

"If there's one class of men that needs to be improved in this country,
it's lawyers. I don't know why it is, but there's something in the very
nature of the work of a lawyer which appears to make him cynical and to
want to wear a know-it-all look. Most lawyers are little more than
sharper crooks than the crooks they have to deal with. They're always
trying to get in on some case or other where they have to outwit the
law, save some one from getting what he justly deserves, and then they
are supposed to be honest and high-minded! Think of it! To judge by some
of the specimens I get up here," and then some lawyer in the place would
turn a shrewd inquiring glance in his direction or steadfastly gaze at
his plate or out the window, while the others stared at him, "you would
think they were the salt of the earth or that they were following a
really noble profession or that they were above or better than other men
in their abilities. Well, if being conniving and tricky are fine traits,
I suppose they are, but personally I can't see it. Generally speaking,
they're physically the poorest fish I get here. They're slow and
meditative and sallow, mostly because they get too little exercise, I
presume. And they're never direct and enthusiastic in an argument. A
lawyer always wants to stick in an 'if' or a 'but,' to get around you in
some way. He's never willing to answer you quickly or directly. I've
watched 'em now for nearly fifteen years, and they're all more or less
alike. They think they're very individual and different, but they're
not. Most of them don't know nearly as much about life as a good,
all-around business or society man," this in the absence of any desire
to discuss these two