stant going and coming that gave the
hinges of the door no rest.

When after a weary wait the time came to enter court, he continued to
give Ocock, who had been deep in consultation with his clerk, a wide
berth, and moved forward among a number of other people. A dark,
ladder-like stair led to the upper storey. While he was mounting this,
some words exchanged in a low tone behind him arrested his attention.

"Are you O.K., old man?"

"We are, if our client doesn't give us away. But he has to be handled
like a hot--" Here the sentence snapped, for Mahony, bitten by a sudden
doubt, faced sharply round. But it was a stranger who uncivilly accused
him of treading on his toe.

The court--it was not much more than twenty feet square--was like an
ill-smelling oven. Every chink and crack had been stopped against the
searing wind; and the atmosphere was a brew of all the sour odours, the
offensive breaths, given off by the two-score odd people crushed within
its walls. In spite of precautions the dust had got in: it lay thick on
sills, desks and papers, gritted between the teeth, made the throat
raspy as a file.

Mahony had given up all hope of winning his case, and looked forward to
the sorry pleasure of assisting at a miscarriage of justice. During the
speech for the plaintiff, however, he began to see the matter in
another light. Not so much thanks to the speaker, as in spite of him.
Plaintiff's counsel was a common little fellow of ungainly appearance:
a double toll of fat bulged over the neck of his gown, and his wig,
hastily re-donned after a breathing-space, sat askew. Nor was he
anything of an orator: he stumbled over his sentences, and once or
twice lost his place altogether. To his dry presentment of the case
nobody seemed to pay heed. The judge, tired of wiping his spectacles
dry, leant back and closed his eyes. Mahony believed he slept, as did
also some of the jurors, deaf to the Citation of Dawes V. Peck and
Dunlop V. Lambert; to the assertion that the carrier was the agent, the
goods were accepted, the property had "passed." This "passing" of the
property was evidently a strong point; the plaintiff's name itself was
not much oftener on the speaker's lips. "The absconding driver, me Lud,
was a personal friend of the defendant's. Mr. Bolliver never knew him;
hence could not engage him. Had this person not been thrust upon him,
Mr. Bolliver would have employed the same carrier as on a previous
occasion." And so