J. Bromley Lippincott was a tall, dark cadaverous man who looked about sixty, as he had probably looked at the age of ten, and gave the impression, not unusual with attorneys-at-law, of having seen so much of life's murky side that he now automatically suspected everyone he met of nameless crimes. Formidable was the word for J. Bromley and sinister the word for the bulging briefcase which he bore with him like a warrior's shield. Too small to contain a corpse, except possibly that of a Singer midget, it was large enough to hold the guilty secrets of half the population of New York, and the nervous beholder, eyeing it, had visions of documents suddenly popping out of its interior which would prove him, the nervous beholder, to be legally debarred from being a feoffee of any fee, fiduciary or in fee simple or something of that nature. It was that sort of briefcase.
- P.G. Wodehouse, Barmy in Wonderland, pp.191
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