"
However, my prospects in the office had begun to improve. I had had my
salary raised, and I had ceased doing janitor work. I had become more
of a clerk and less of an office boy. A number of us "kids" had got up
a moot court, rented a room to meet in, and finally obtained the use of
another room in the old Denver University building, where, in the
gaslight, we used to hold "quiz classes" and defend imaginary cases.
(That, by the way, was the beginning of the Denver University Law
School.) I read my Blackstone, Kent, Parsons--working night and
day--and I began really to get some sort of "grasp of the law." Long
before I had passed my examinations and been called to the bar, Mr.
Thompson would give me demurrers to argue in court; and, having been
told that I had only a pretty poor sort of legal mind, I worked twice
as hard to make up for my deficiencies. I argued my first case, a
damage suit, when I was nineteen. And at last there happened one of
those lucky turns common in jury cases, and it set me on my feet.
A man had been held by the law on several counts of obtaining goods
under false pretences. He had been tried on the first count by an
assistant district attorney, and the jury had acquitted him.
Pages:
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172