"Is the State ready to proceed?" came the case-weary accents from the bench.
"We are ready." Chippen's young voice wobbled uncertainly.
"The defendant ready?"
"If the Court please," in Mabry's meticulous accents, "my colleagues—in a moment——"
The judge leaned back, closing his eyes.
A sudden hush at the door. A stretching of necks from all the fringes of the room. Walking daintily, with a glaze of dignity which never lost its underwash of the furtive, came Meyer Garfunkel, youngest of the firm. Spence leaned forward to Pelham. "Biggest crook in six states! Does all their dirtiest jobs.... They always come in this way; it impresses the courthouse crowd."
The door swung again; a succession of breathless "There he is!"-es, as Colonel Lysander G. Pugh stamped heavily in, with his invariable atmosphere of busied haste, bowing affably left and right, his weathered broad-brim clutched beside his brief case.
Another shifting of interest. Tipton Leach, narrow-eyed, a permanent sneer around his mouth, walking slowly, speculatively. "He is the brains," continued Spence. "The corporations fear him like sin, in damage cases. He bleeds them and his clients indiscriminately. But he knows more law than all the local bench."
Last of all, preceded by his law clerk, Zebulun Hilary himself, his little red face, under the thinned mop of white hair, sticking out of his wide collar like a turtle's. "Over eighty, and indestructible! Even his conscience is asbestos."
There was a leisurely deliberation among the five counsel for the defendant. Five heads came together, five brains bent their scheming toward freeing the accused negro, ten eyes quivered with satisfaction at the prospect.