LAWYER AND CLERK. A WOODEN-LEGGED BALLAD. By H. M. Doak. [Response to the Toast " Taxing the Costs " at the Banquet of the Tennessee Bar Association, Lookout Mountain, Chattanooga, Term., July n, 1890.] EFENDANT was a gallant son of Mars, A soldier maimed in many wars, Who 'd garnered glory, cuts, and scars, And a serviceable wooden leg, — Not gold, like that of Kilmansegg, Nor steel elastic, nor bounding cork, Equal to Nature's handiwork, — Only a well-worn oaken peg. A greedy, sour-faced tapster mean, To satisfy a landlord's lien, Sued out a sort of writ e-leg-it,1 And to a justice's court he fetcht it, And claimed his pitiful bill for board, — This sour-faced, sordid, scurvy landlord. John Doe, of certiorari fame, Was lawyer for the soldier lame Against the landlord's lamer claim, And threatened to recoup 2 for waste 3 Because he had the leg unbraced; And snatching off the leg on-laced Was waste of timber used for leg-bote * — A common-law term explained in foot-note (Don't "bote" for "boot" mistake, I beg; The boot was on the other leg) — Or, as it were, for waggin'-bote; The only way he had to wag, Wi' scrippage and scrip, baggage and bag. Writs issued, too, from the soldier's side Before the case was called and tried.
