The Confessions of Artemas Quibble | Page 9

a high compliment, and I suspect that it was for
this reason that the complainant had in the meantime sent round for his
own lawyer to represent him. We were now pushed forward and
huddled into a small space in front of the rail, while the lawyers took
their places upon the platform before us.
"Your Honor," began the lawyer for the hotel man, "this fellow here
has swindled my client out of six hundred dollars by inducing him to
cash a worthless check."
"What have you to say, Mr. Gottlieb?" asked the judge.
"Confession and avoidance, your Honor," replied the attorney, with
what appeared to me to be the slightest possible drawing down of his
right eyelid. "Confession and avoidance. We admit the fact, but we
deny the imputation of guilt. My client, Mr. Robinson, whose abilities
as an actor have no doubt hitherto given your Honor much pleasure,
was so careless as to forget the precise amount of his bank account and
happened to draw a check for too large an amount. No one was more
surprised and horrified at the discovery than he. And his intention is at
once to reimburse in full the complainant, whose action in having him
arrested seems most extraordinary and reprehensible."
"Your Honor," interrupted the other lawyer, "were there the slightest
possibility of any such outcome I should be glad to withdraw the

charge; but, as a matter of fact, this person is a worthless, lazy fellow
who has not a cent to his name, and who induced my client to cash his
check by leading him to believe that he was a man of substance and
position. No doubt he has spent the money, and if not we might as well
try to squeeze it out of a stone. This fellow is guilty of a crime and he
ought to be punished. I ask your Honor to hold him for the grand jury."
"Well, Mr. Gottlieb," remarked the judge, "tell me, if you can, why I
should not lock your client up. Did he not falsely pretend, by requesting
the complainant to cash the check, that he had money in the bank to
meet it?"
"By no means, your Honor," answered Gottlieb. "The proffering of a
check with a request for money thereon is merely asking that the
money be advanced on the faith that the bank will honor the demand
made upon it. One who cashes a check does so at his own risk. He has a
full remedy at civil law, and if the bank refuses to pay no crime has
been committed. This is not a case for the penal law."
"That seems reasonable," said the judge, turning to the other. "How do
you make this out a crime? What false pretence is there in merely
inviting another to cash a check?"
"Why," answered the attorney, "if I ask you to cash a check for me, do I
not represent that I have a right to draw upon the bank for the amount
set forth? If not, no one would ever cash a check. The innocent person
who advances the money has the right to assume that the borrower is
not offering him a bad check. There is a tacit representation that the
check is good or that the maker has funds in the bank to meet it."
"True--true!" nodded his Honor. "There is something in what you say.
What answer can you make to that, Brother Gottlieb?"
"I have a hundred good arguments," replied the lawyer in a low tone.
Then he added briskly: "But the intent, your Honor! There can be no
crime without a wrongful intent; and how can there have been any such
when my client honestly believed that he had the money in the bank to
meet the check?"

"But," cried the other, "he knew very well he had not!"
"What evidence have you to that effect?" queried Gottlieb. "You say so,
to be sure, but I, on the contrary, assert that he was perfectly honest in
the matter. Now, there is absolutely nothing in this case to prove that he
had any guilty knowledge to the effect that his account was too low to
meet the draft in question. You have proven no scienter whatever."
"Ah!" exclaimed the judge. "That is it! You have shown no scienter!"
"Exactly!" cried Gottlieb--"no scienter at all."
"But how in the world could I have proved a scienter?" wrathfully
demanded the lawyer. "I can't pry open the prisoner's skull and exhibit
his evil intent."
"No, but you could have shown that he knew he had only a few dollars
in the bank by the fact that he had previously tried to cash a similar
check and that it had been returned. In any event, my own mind is