doors of the court-room are closed. The
attendants go about looking for whisperers and saying, "Cease all
conversation." The lady client is interrupted in telling her lawyer
that she thinks the judge has a kind face, but that she does not like
the looks of the man in uniform standing next to him, or vice versa.
Gradually the court-room quiets and a spirit of expectancy prevails.

But the actual taking of evidence and the hearing of testimony is not
yet. Now comes what is known as the opening. So in the tournament, the
armored knights entered with a blast of trumpets, their names and
titles having been called, and it was customary for them to ride once
or twice around the lists to let the judges see their armor, their
weapons, their mounts, their trappings and accoutrements, or they
might even try a tilt or two at one another. The introductory speech
of counsel is somewhat in the nature of a parade or a preliminary
skirmish. It may also be compared to the prologue spoken before the
beginning of a drama. The speech with the vivid brevity, so common in
legal terminology, is called the opening.

The object is to show to the judge and jury what the drama is about.
The secondary object is to arouse interest. Immediately after the
opening comes the evidence, which is usually bald, fragmentary, and
disconnected. It might be impossible for the jury to understand the
relation of one bit of testimony to another. Take a simple case such
as a suit for the failure to pay a bill at a dry-goods store. One
witness testifies to the sale, another to the packing of the goods,
another to the delivery; a receipt is introduced in evidence. Each one
would not tell a connected story. The opening outlines the facts and
makes the evidence understandable. It also has the function of an
appetizer. This may seem a trifle unnecessary. But let us take an
illustration. A whole case may depend upon a deed. If the paper itself
were put in and read to the jury without explanation they would be
bored. One witness is to tell this part of the story, another that,
and the missing link of the chain may be supplied by the deed. The
jury are not to be mystified before their interest is aroused. Are not
the lives, property, or reputations of particular men at stake? The
ordinary man and even more the average juryman has far too strong a
sense of responsibility to be bored if truly he can understand what it
is all about. The function of the opening is to tell hi