By the time the waiter had returned, the young advocate was addressing himself to the bundle of papers with a remarkable energy. Already a fierce mental excitement had stirred him. His senses, overstimulated by a wine of great potency, and by a too sudden reaction from a state of actual bodily starvation, a fever had been kindled in his frame. And those high ambitions which had reconciled him to existence through so long a period of the most abject penury, yet whose only home had been his wild dreams, had suddenly, at the touch of the magic wand of the enchanter, acquired a name and a local habitation. It was no wonder that to the eyes of the solicitor, that cool, mature, and rather cynical man of the world, this young man, in whom strong and deep emotions had been let loose, soon became an object of scientific interest. Mr. Whitcomb felt himself to be even a little disconcerted by the feverish manner in which the young advocate tossed about the pages of his brief. As he came to note the vivid pallor of the face before him, the burning of the eyes, the twitching of the lips, he felt a qualm of uneasiness. Perchance it had been neither wise nor kind to be so lavish of the Château Margaux. Blood which had been deteriorated by a course of insufficient food was only too likely to be over-charged by an unaccustomed accession of heat. Already it had seemed to be waxing too high. “Here is your liqueur,” said Mr. Whitcomb, with a slight perturbation, “and here’s a cigar I’ve chosen for you. And here’s a nice black coffee that may steady you a bit.” “Thanks, thanks,” muttered Northcote, nodding his head in a mechanical manner. The solicitor gulped his liqueur, and cut off the end of his cigar. “Well, old boy,” he said, letting a somewhat whimsical gaze fall upon the man who sat opposite, “do you feel like giving us a bit of a run for our money at the hour of ten-thirty at the Central Criminal Court on Friday morning next, or would you prefer that the chance should be offered to Harris?” The advocate swallowed his coffee. “You will have a run for your money all right,” said he, “on Friday morning next. Upon my soul, I believe you have given me a start with the most fascinating case in the world.” The solicitor pursed up his lips in an expression of genial contradiction. “If you find fascination in a thing like that,” he said, “you must look very deep. The whole business is sordid, atrocious, bestial. The crime is brutal and perfectly commonplace.” “Is it not a mere question,” said the advocate, “of the fashion in which one uses one’s eyes, of the plane over which one permits them to stray?” “There is only one plane, my friend,” said the solicitor, “over which an attorney permits _his_ eyes to stray. That is the obvious diurnal one of matter-of-fact common sense.” “Yet it may happen,” Northcote rejoined, “that the plane of matter-of-fact common sense may not be identical in the eyes of attorney and advocate.”