"Not?" said the other barrister, who went by the name of Will Jones.
"No," said Russel. "In fact, I'm pretty clear it isn't. But that will make no odds. When Clayton is thoroughly waked up, he is a whole team, I can tell you. He'll take jury and judge along with him, fast enough."
"I wonder," said one, "that Barker didn't compound the matter."
"Oh, Barker is one of the stubbed sort. You know these middling kind of people always have a spite against old families. He makes fight because it is the Gordons, that's all. And there comes in his republicanism. He isn't going to be whipped in by the Gordons. Barker has got Scotch blood in him, and he'll hang on to the case like death."
"Clayton will make a good speech," said Jones.
"Speech? that he will!" said Russel. "Bless me, I could lay off a good speech on it, myself. Because, you see, it really was quite an outrage; and the woman is a presentable creature. And, then, there's the humane dodge; that can be taken, beside all the chivalry part of defending the helpless, and all that sort of thing. I wouldn't ask for a better thing to work up into a speech. But Clayton will do it better yet, because he is actually sincere in it. And, after all's said and done, there's a good deal in that. When a fellow speaks in solemn earnest, he gives a kind of weight that you can't easily get at any other way."
"Well, but," said one, "I don't understand you, Russel, why you think the law isn't on Clayton's side. I'm sure it's a very clear case of terrible abuse."
"Oh, certainly it is," said Russel, "and the man is a dolt, and a brute beast, and ought to be shot, and so forth; but, then, he hasn't really exceeded his legal limits, because, you see, the law gives to the hirer all the rights of the master. There's no getting away from that, in my opinion. Now, any master might have done all that, and nobody could have done anything about it. They do do it, for that matter, if they're bad enough, and nobody thinks of touching them."
"Well, I say," said Jones, "Russel, don't you think that's too bad?"
"Laws, yes, man; but the world is full of things that are too bad. It's a bad kind of a place," said Russel, as he lit another cigar.