His lordship's "asides" added something to the Marshal's instruction and more to his amusement. Sir Christopher was not a reformer or a sociologist, nor even an emotionalist either. He took this Assize Court world as he found it, just as he took West-End drawing-rooms as he found them, at other times of the year. He knew the standards. He was never shocked, and nothing made him angry, except cruelty or a Jack-in-office. In presence of these he was coldly dangerous and deadly. To see him take in hand a policeman whose zeal outran the truth was a lesson in the art of flaying a man's skin off him strip by strip. The asides came often then; the artist would have the pupil note his skill and did not disdain his applause. Though the Marshal's share in the work of the court was of the smallest, his lordship liked him to be there, hearing the cases and qualifying himself for a gossip over them, on an afternoon walk or at dinner in the evening. As the days went by, a pleasant intimacy between the old man and the young established itself, and grew into a mutual affection, quasi-paternal on the one side, almost filial on the other. A bachelor, without near kindred save an elderly maiden sister, the old Judge found in Arthur something of what a son gives his father--a vicarious and yet personal interest in the years to come--and he found amusement in discovering likenesses between himself and his protégé, or at least in speculating on their existence with a playful humour. "Men differ in the way they look at their professions or businesses," he said. "Of course everybody's got to live, but, going deeper into it than that, you find one man to whom his profession is, first and foremost, a ladder, and another to whom it's a seat in the theatre--if you follow what I mean. That fellow Norton Ward's of the first class. He's never looking about him; his eyes are always turned upwards, towards an inspiring vision of himself at the top. But you and I like looking about us; we're not in a hurry to be always on the upward move. The scene delights us, even though we've no part in it, or only a small one. That's been true about me, and I think it's true about you, Arthur." "Oh, I've my ambitions, sir," laughed Arthur. "Fits of ambition, anyhow." "Fits and starts? That's rather it, I fancy. You probably won't go as far as Norton Ward in a professional way, but you may very likely make just as much mark on life really, besides enjoying it more; I mean in a richer broader way. Purely professional success--and I include politics as well as the law, because they're equally a profession to men like our friend--is rather a narrow thing. The man with more interests--the more human man--spreads himself wider and is more felt really; he gets remembered more too." "The Idle Man's Apologia! Very ingenious!" said Arthur, smiling.