kindly expressed his entire willingness that he should do so--had, of
course, not thought it worthwhile to cross-examine Mr. Clark, and had
directed his whole argument against the theory that the safe had been
opened with a key, and not by strangers. But he had felt all through
that, as a man politely remarked to him when he finished, he was only
butting his "head ag'in a stone wall."

And while he was arguing, a jolly-looking old lawyer had written, in
the fly-leaf of a law-book on his knee, and passed with a wink to a
young man near him who had that very morning been admitted to the bar,
these lines:

"When callow Blackstones soar too high,
Quit common-sense, and reckless fly,
Soon, Icarus-like, they headlong fall,
And down come client, case, and all."

The district-attorney had not thought it worth while to expend much
strength upon his closing argument; but being a jovial stump-speaker,
of a wide reputation within narrow limits, he had not been able to
refrain from making merry over Wood's statement that the basket which
he had been seen bearing home, on the eventful night, was a basket of
eels.

"Fine eels those, gentlemen! We have seen gold-fish and silver-fish,
but golden eels are first discovered by this defendant. The apostle,
in Holy Writ, caught a fish with a coin in its mouth; but this man
leaves the apostle in the dim distance when he finds eels that are
all money. No storied fisherman of Bagdad, catching enchanted princes
disguised as fishes in the sea, ever hooked such a treasure as this
defendant hooked when he hooked that basket of eels! [Rustling
appreciation of the pun among the jury.] If a squirming, twisting,
winding, wriggling eel, gentlemen, can be said at any given moment to
have a back, we may distinguish this new-found species as the
green-back eel. It is a common saying that no man can hold an eel and
remain a Christian. I should like to have viewed the pious equanimity
of this church-member when he laid his hands on that whole bed of
eels. In happy, barefoot boyhood, gentlemen, we used to find
mud-turtles marked with initials or devices cut in their shells; but
what must have been our friend's surprise to find, in the muddy bed of
Harlow's Creek, eels marked with a steel-engraving of the landing of
Columbus, and the signature of the Register of the Treasury! I hear
that a corporation is now being formed by the title of The Harlow's
Creek Greenback National Bank-bill