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Ditchley can't recall exactly when he first began to suspect that the lawyers were out to get him. Maybe it was when, as a young man, he bought a modest house—and had to take out a second mortgage to pay the lawyer's closing fee. Maybe it was when Grandmother left some money, and Ditchley, through his grief, began dreaming of a nice vacation and maybe enough left over for a snowblower. Then the lawyers got into the act, clucking about what a mess Grandmother had left and how lucky Ditchley was that, thanks to their skill, the whole thing might not cost him too much. That made Ditchley worry about his own estate being picked clean, so he called on Thurmond Hotchkiss O'Mulvaney Garcia & Ginsburg, where a junior partner had a secretary copy a few paragraphs from a book and then presented him with a brand-new will and a bill for $500.

The clouds really began to lower when Ditchley started his own business. His lawyers practically lived with him, filing taxes, dealing with pension plans, dodging safety inspectors and responding (in triplicate) to 12,472 government questionnaires dealing with things like the number of soap spigots in the washrooms and the ratio of three-toed dwarfs he employed relative to their number in the total population. Ditchley was becoming, frankly, a little paranoid on the subject of lawyers. His sister's divorce didn't help.

At first Malvina was very civilized about the whole thing, but then she and Sidney went out and hired a couple of lawyers. The neighbors soon had to call the cops to prevent trial separation of heads from torsos. Even when his daughter became engaged, Ditchley couldn't escape from the lawyers; she called one in to help her write a marriage contract; so naturally her fiance got one too. Finally, Ditchley's wife decided to start a career; $50,000 and two bankrupt batik boutiques later, she got into a law school. Now, whenever he tries to strike up a conversation with her, she mutters things like "Deponent sayeth not. " But Ditchley is sending Junior to law school too, damn the expense. A good father, he figures, does not send his son into the world defenseless.