"Well, Byrd?" was his suggestive exclamation.
"Well, Hickory?" was the quiet reply.
"What do you think of the case so far?"
"I think"—the words came somewhat slowly—"I think that it looks bad. Bad for the prisoner, I mean," he explained the next moment with a quick flush.
"Your sympathies are evidently with Mansell," Hickory quietly remarked.
"Yes," was the slow reply. "Not that I think him innocent, or would turn a hair's breadth from the truth to serve him."
"He is a manly fellow," Hickory bluntly admitted, after a moment's puff at the pipe he was smoking. "Do you remember the peculiar straightforwardness of his look when he uttered his plea of 'Not guilty,' and the tone he used too, so quiet, yet so emphatic? You could have heard a pin drop."
"Yes," returned Mr. Byrd, with a quick contraction of his usually smooth brow.
"Have you noticed," the other broke forth, after another puff, "a certain curious air of disdain that he wears?"
"Yes," was again the short reply.