For this
was in his character; if he saw a horse that he liked, he put his money
on whatever it ran; if charmed by an opera, he went over and over again;
if by a poem, he almost learned it by heart. And while he walked along
the river--his usual route--he had queer and unaccustomed sensations,
now melting, now pugnacious. And he felt happy.
He was rather late, and went at once into court. In wig and gown, that
something "old Georgian" about him was very visible. A beauty-spot or
two, a full-skirted velvet coat, a sword and snuff-box, with that
grey wig or its equivalent, and there would have been a perfect
eighteenth-century specimen of the less bucolic stamp--the same strong,
light build, breadth of face, brown pallor, clean and unpinched cut of
lips, the same slight insolence and devil-may-caredom, the same clear
glance, and bubble of vitality. It was almost a pity to have been born
so late.
Except that once or twice he drew a face on blotting-paper and smeared
it over, he remained normally attentive to his "lud" and the matters in
hand all day, conducted without error the examination of two witnesses
and with terror the cross-examination of one; lunched at the Courts in
perfect amity with the sucking barrister on the other side of the case,
for they had neither, as yet, reached that maturity which enables an
advocate to call his enemy his "friend," and treat him with considerable
asperity.
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