humanity, whose sensitive soul quivered at the mere thought of a prison
cell, and who meticulously sought to surround the defendant with every
protection the law could interpose against the imputation of guilt.

He was, as Tutt put it, "a dangerous old cuss." O'Brien was even worse.
He was a bull-necked, bullet-headed, pugnosed young ruffian with beery
eyes, who had an insatiable ambition and a still greater conceit, but
who had devised a blundering, innocent, helpless way of conducting
himself before a jury that deceived them into believing that his
inexperience required their help and his disinterestedness their loyal
support. Both of them were apparently fair-minded, honest public
servants; both in reality were subtly disingenuous to a degree beyond
ordinary comprehension, for years of practise had made them sensitive to
every whimsy of emotion and taught them how to play upon the psychology
of the jury as the careless zephyr softly draws its melody from the
aeolian harp. In a word they were a precious pair of crooks, who for
their own petty selfish ends played fast and loose with liberty, life
and death.

Both of them hated Mr. Tutt, who had more than once made them ridiculous
before the jury and shown them up before the Court of Appeals, and the
old lawyer recognized well the fact that these two legal wolves were in
revenge planning to tear him and his helpless client to pieces, having
first deliberately selected him as a victim and assigned him to
officiate at a ceremony which, however just so far as its consummation
might be concerned, was nothing less in its conduct than judicial
murder. Now they were laughing at him in their sleeves, for Mr. Tutt
enjoyed the reputation of never having defended a client who had been
convicted of murder, and that spotless reputation was about to be
annihilated forever.