Under no circumstances do men congregate with less meritorious motives than in meeting in and around a court of justice. The object is victory, and the means of obtaining it will not always bear the light. The approaching Circuit and Oyer and Terminer of Duke’s was no exception to the rule; a crowd of evil passions, of sinister practices, and of plausible pretences, being arrayed against justice and the law, in two-thirds of the causes on the calendar. Then it was that Timms and saucy Williams, or Dick Williams, as he was familiarly termed by his associates, came out in their strength, playing off against each other the out-door practices of the profession. The first indication that the former now got of the very serious character of the struggle that was about to take place between them, was in the extraordinary civility of saucy Williams when they met in the bar-room of the inn they each frequented, and which had long been the arena of their antagonistical wit and practices.
“I never saw you look better, Timms,” said Williams, in the most cordial manner imaginable; “on the whole, I do not remember to have ever seen you looking so well. You grow younger instead of older, every day of your life. By the way, do you intend to move on Butterfield against Town this circuit?”
“I should be glad to do it, if you are ready. Cross-notices have been given, you know.”
Williams knew this very well; and he also knew that it had been done to entitle the respective parties to costs, in the event of anything occurring to give either side an advantage; the cause being one of those nuts out of which practitioners are very apt to extract the whole of the kernel before they are done with it.
“Yes, I am aware of that, and I believe we are quite ready. I see that Mr. Town is here, and I observe several of his witnesses; but I have so much business, I have no wish to try a long slander cause; words spoken in heat, and never thought of again, but to make a profit of them.”
“You are employed against us in the murder case, I hear?”
“I rather think the friends of the deceased so regard it; but I have scarcely had time to look at the testimony before the coroner”—This was a deliberate mystification, and Timms perfectly understood it as such, well knowing that the other had given the out-door work of the case nearly all of his time for the last fortnight—“and I don’t like to move in one of these big matters without knowing what I am about. Your senior counsel has not yet arrived from town, I believe?”
“He cannot be here until Wednesday, having to argue a great insurance case before the Superior Court to-day and to-morrow.”
This conversation occurred after the grand jury had been charged, the petit jurors sworn, and the judge had heard several motions for correcting the calendar, laying causes over, &c. &c. Two hours later, the District Attorney being absent in his room, engaged with the grand jury, Williams arose, and addressed the court, which had just called the first civil cause on the calendar.
“May it please the court,” he said, coolly, but with the grave aspect of a man who felt he was dealing with a very serious matter—“there is a capital indictment depending, a case of arson and murder, which it is the intention of the State to call on at once.”