At the first examination of the prisoner Mr. Crapp was represented by a counsel in a stuff gown, and very learned in the criminal law of his country. The reader will not care to have a report of his speech when I tell him that it was not worth reporting. Of this scene and its incidents it is enough to say, that Mr. Snayke, the learned counsel (then attired in stuff, but who now wears silk), did not trouble himself to examine the charge-sheet, and took the accusation as it had been framed by the police, without inquiring about its accuracy. The evidence was yet, however, of the flimsiest character, and scandalously incomplete. The cheque was not in court; and so many other essential ingredients of the case were only conspicuous by their absence, that Mr. Snayke should merely ask the bench to remand the prisoner. An insignificant fact or two were then given in evidence, and the prisoner, who offered no objection, was remanded for seven days. He would have acquiesced in a remand for seven or ten times seventy months. Much as the stupid and mean thief disliked the house of detention, its diet, and its restraints, he had an intenser dread of what is called “a trial,” with its inevitable sequel, a conviction. He drew a species or a degree of comfort from the philosophy of Hamlet. He would very much rather bear the ills he had, than fly to others which appalled by their very uncertainty. He had not yet arrived at that other stage of criminal philosophy (which a genteel villain named William Roupell found, it is said, in Spain) that draws its only consolation out of knowing the worst.
After the first examination of the prisoner, Mr. Snayke intimated to Mr. Croak he thought it very desirable to have a consultation as early as possible. Mr. Croak understood, or—not to pay him an undue compliment—he saw that there was something in the suggestion. He therefore indorsed the learned counsel’s brief with that potent word “consultation,” and with the yet more potent figure of two guineas.
A meeting between attorney and counsel took place that very afternoon at the chambers of Mr. Snayke. Mr. Croak attended it himself, and nobody else was there. It was a secret meeting; but I shall take the liberty of drawing aside the veil, and letting the reader into this consultation. I shall ask him to prick up his ears, so that he may lose nothing of the conversation, and to concentrate his attention, so that he may understand what he hears.
“Mr. Croak.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Pray be seated.”
“Thank you, sir.”
This was the frigid tone of a greeting between the mouthy criminal advocate and the patron attorney who buttered his bread on both sides. I am told that this bumptiousness on the one hand, and humbleness on the other, is the almost invariable style of intercourse between the technically upper and the technically lower ranks of the legal profession. Much of the power of wig and gown is said to depend upon the maintenance of a relative status in the business of the law.
After a moment or two of iciness, Mr. Snayke’s consciousness of what was due to the attorney warmed him, so he grew polite and more condescending towards his inferior brother and paymaster.
“You see, Croak,” said the great Snayke, “that it is very important to frame this charge against the prisoner accurately, and I should like to know the real facts of the case—such as can be established in evidence exactly—which I do not yet. Did the prisoner steal a cheque with the amount and so forth filled in, and with his master’s signature attached in his master’s own handwriting, or did the fellow steal a blank cheque, and fill it in, and sign it with his master’s name? The distinction is important to the prisoner himself, because the different facts establish different crimes; but the prosecutor is far more interested, as it seems to me, in this part of the affair than the accused.”