And they fell to on the refreshments before them.
Meanwhile the barristers, whose self-imposed code forbade them to enter a public hotel room in a town where the assizes were being held, had straggled off, some to the County Club, and others to the common-room reserved for their especial use in the chief hotel of the place.
Among the latter was Tressamer, who found Prescott awaiting him anxiously, and trying, with poor success, to get through the wing of a fowl. He (Prescott) looked pale and dejected; but Tressamer rushed into the place in a state of exaggerated buoyancy, and loudly called for a bottle of champagne.
‘George, how goes it?’ cried his friend.
‘All went merry as a marriage-bell,’ returned the other. ‘Have no fear; keep up your heart, old man. Leave it to me; I’ll get her off. Much obliged to you for going away, though. Young Pollard did come some croppers, I can tell you. Buller’s against us, of course, on the evidence; but what do I care? I’ll get the jury, see if I don’t. I’ll make a speech this afternoon the like of which hasn’t often been heard in this dead-and-alive hole. Lewis, beware! Here’s confusion to the guilty, and safety to the innocent!’
He had rattled on in a jerky, excited, nervous manner, and he wound up by drinking off nearly a tumblerful of champagne. Prescott could hardly make him out. He feared the strain of the last few weeks was unhinging his friend’s mind.
‘Gently,’ he said, remonstrating; ‘you must keep cool, or you will spoil everything. Beware of old Buller. When he is giving you the most rope, he is getting ready to come down on you most heavily at the end. I think you’ll find it a weak jury. They will do pretty well as the judge tells them.’
‘Don’t you be afraid, Charlie,’ retorted the other in the same unnaturally careless strain; ‘it’s my case, and I know how to manage it. I’ve sworn to save her, and, by God! I’ll do it, if I have to declare I did the thing myself! By Jove, didn’t I touch up that scoundrel in the witness-box, though! You saw me, Beltrope?’
He called to another barrister, who had been present in court the whole morning.