O.S.

* * * * *

EMBARRASSMENT AND THE LAWYER.

Watson is a young barrister who is feeling rather pleased with himself.
I confess that he has deserved it.

The situation was as follows. Before the War he had had no briefs, but
had always had a conscience. A hopeless state of affairs. Then he went
to the War and shed his conscience somewhere in the Balkans. So far so
good. But, when he was demobilised and began to take stock of what had
been happening at home in the meanwhile, he found to his horror that a
conscience had again been thrust upon him by the General Council of the
Bar.

Such was the situation he had to face, and he has won through.

How, you ask, did the G.C.B. play this trick on him? It happened in
this way. Having nothing better to do during Watson's absence and at a
critical moment of the War, these idle elderly well-fed lawyers solemnly
deliberated upon the following fantastic problem:--

"What is the duty of counsel who is defending a prisoner on a plea of
Not Guilty when the prisoner confesses to counsel that he did commit the
offence charged?"

With a cynical disregard of their own past these sophists propounded the
following answer:--