“It couldn't be done now,” said Pemberton.
“That's what the Chief said. They could n't do it now, for they have not got M'Nally,—whoever M'Nally was.”
Pemberton colored crimson, for M'Nally was the name of the Solicitor-General of that day, and he knew well that the sarcasm was in the comparison between that clever lawyer and himself.
“What I meant was, that Crown lawyers have a very different public to account to in the present day from what they had in those lawless times,” said Pemberton, with irritation. “I 'm afraid the Chief Baron, with all his learning and all his wit, likes to go back to that period for every one of his illustrations. You heard how he capped the Archbishop's allusion to the Prodigal Son to-day?—I don't think his Grace liked it—that it requires more tact to provide an escape for a criminal than to prosecute a guilty man to conviction.”
“That's so like him!” said Sewell, with a bitter laugh. “Perhaps the great charm that attaches him to public life is to be able to utter his flippant impertinences ex cathedra. If you could hit upon some position from which he could fulminate his bolts of sarcasm with effect, I fancy he 'd not object to resign the Bench. I heard him once say, 'I cannot go to church without a transgression, for I envy the preacher, who has the congregation at his mercy for an hour.'”
“Ah, he 'll not resign,” sighed Pemberton, deeply.
“I don't know that.”
“At least he 'll not do so on any terms they 'll make with him.”
“Nor am I so sure of that,” repeated the other, gravely. Sewell waited for some rejoinder to this speech, of which he hoped his companion would ask the explanation; but the cautious lawyer said not a word.
“No man with a sensitive, irascible, and vain disposition is to be turned from his course, whatever it be, by menace or bully,” said Sewell. “The weak side of these people is their vanity, and to approach them by that you ought to know and to cultivate those who are about them. Now, I have no hesitation in saying there were moments—ay, there were hours—in which, if it had been any interest to me, I could have got him to resign. He is eminently a man of his word, and, once pledged, nothing would make him retire from his promise.”