'ye
think I'm afraid of a pack like yon? Who's going to interfere with me,
I'd like to know? Go home yourself!"

He turned towards the door from which he had just emerged--turned to see
his solicitor and his counsel coming out together. And his sudden anger
died down, and his face relaxed to a smile of triumph.

"Now then!" he exclaimed. "Didn't I tell you how it would be, a week
since! Come on across to the Arms and I'll stand a bottle--aye, two,
three, if you like!--of the very best. Come on, both of you."

The solicitor, glancing around, saw something of the state of affairs,
hurriedly excused himself, and slipped back into the Town Hall by
another entrance. But the barrister, a man who, great as his forensic
abilities were, was one of those people who have no private reputation
to lose, and of whom it was well known that he could never withstand the
temptation to a bottle of champagne, assented readily, and with great
good humour. And he and Cotherstone, arm in arm, walked down the steps
and across the Market Place--and behind them the crowd sneered and
laughed and indulged in audible remarks.

Cotherstone paid, or affected to pay, no heed. He steered his companion
into the Arms, and turned into the great bow-windowed room which served
as morning meeting-place for all the better class of loungers and
townsmen in Highmarket. The room was full already. Men had come across
from the court, and from the crowd outside; a babel of talk arose from
every corner. But when Cotherstone and the well-known barrister (so
famous in that circuit for his advocacy of criminals that he had
acquired the nickname of the Felons' Friend) entered, a dead silence
fell, and men looked at this curious pair and then at each other with
significant glances.

In that silence, Cotherstone, seizing a waiter, loudly demanded
champagne and cigars: he glared defiantly around him as he supplemented
the order with a command for the best box of cigars in the house, the
best champagne in the cellars. A loud laugh from some corner of the room
broke the silence, and the waiter, a shrewd fellow who saw how things
were, gave Cotherstone a look.

"Come into the small parlour, Mr. Cotherstone," he whispered. "Nobody in
there--you'll be more comfortable, sir."

"All right, then," responded Cotherstone. He glared once more at the
company around him, and his defiance suddenly broke out in another
fashion. "Any friend of mine that likes to join us," he said