pressing his opinion of his client. "He's
not a bad fellow, Wickerby."

"A very good sort of fellow, Mr. Chaffanbrass."

"I never did,--and I never will,--express an opinion of my own as
to the guilt or innocence of a client till after the trial is over.
But I have sometimes felt as though I would give the blood out of my
veins to save a man. I never felt in that way more strongly than I do
now."

"It'll make me very unhappy, I know, if it goes against him," said
Mr. Wickerby.

"People think that the special branch of the profession into which I
have chanced to fall is a very low one,--and I do not know whether,
if the world were before me again, I would allow myself to drift into
an exclusive practice in criminal courts."

"Yours has been a very useful life, Mr. Chaffanbrass."

"But I often feel," continued the barrister, paying no attention to
the attorney's last remark, "that my work touches the heart more
nearly than does that of gentlemen who have to deal with matters of
property and of high social claims. People think I am savage,--savage
to witnesses."

"You can frighten a witness, Mr. Chaffanbrass."

"It's just the trick of the trade that you learn, as a girl learns
the notes of her piano. There's nothing in it. You forget it all the
next hour. But when a man has been hung whom you have striven to
save, you do remember that. Good-morning, Mr. Wickerby. I'll be there
a little before ten. Perhaps you may have to speak to me."

CHAPTER LXI

The Beginning of the Trial

The task of seeing an important trial at the Old Bailey is by no
means a pleasant business, unless you be what the denizens of the
Court would call "one of the swells,"--so as to enjoy the privilege
of being a benchfellow with the judge on the seat of judgment. And
even in that case the pleasure is not unalloyed. You have, indeed,
the gratification of seeing the man whom all the world has been
talking about for the last nine days, face to face; and of being seen
in a position which causes you to be acknowledged as a man of mark;
but the intolerable stenches of the Court and its horrid heat come
up to you there, no doubt, as powerfully as they fall on those below.
And then the tedium of a prolonged trial, in which the points of
interest are apt to be few and far between, grows upon you till you
begin to feel that though the Prime Minister who is out should murder
the Prime Minister who is in, and all the members of the two Cabine