First one is
restrained and rebuked, then the other is held strictly to the rules
of the game. Like schoolboys, although they may be fighting one
another, they appear at times to be in league against the judge. As in
a baseball game, both sides join against the umpire. There is a
common class feeling between the lawyers leaguing them against the
judge. This may be explained perhaps by a rather subtle psychology.
The lawyers are primarily in court to please their clients. Every
ruling of the judge against them on even minor points of evidence, any
adverse decision is fatal to them from the point of view of retaining
the client for the next litigation. They watch the judge with
lynx-like eyes. Is he going to drive the client away from them? Should
he reprimand them or speak severely, their client would think that
they had angered the judge and so they had lost the case. Defeat in a
case is so important that if a lawyer loses a case he probably loses
his client.
In one of the lower city courts on the East Side, a young attorney
came in one morning with a scar across his cheek, a scratch on his
nose, and sticking plaster on his chin. The judge had often seen him
before.
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