“I do not think any of you has touched upon what is, after all, the quality which has made Mr. Cleveland what he is in American politics. I had some reason to know wherein his power lies, at a time when he probably had no other thought of his future than the expectation of earning a competence at the bar. It so happened that I was associated with certain litigations in which Mr. Cleveland was employed as counsel. He was not employed either for or against the interests which I represented, for they were merely incidental to these suits. I was amazed, after a little experience with him, to see the way in which he worked. I thought I had seen hard work and patient fidelity, but I never saw a lawyer so patient and so faithful to his clients as Cleveland was. I remember speaking about it to an eminent lawyer who has since become a judge, and he told me that Grover Cleveland was the most conscientious man in his relations with his clients that he had ever met. I spoke of it to somebody else, and that man told me that Cleveland had once actually lost a case by over-conscientiousness and too thorough preparation. He had examined his witnesses so persistently and exhaustively in private, and had pursued the case in all its details with such supreme drudgery, that when his witnesses went upon the stand their testimony seemed to the jury to be almost parrot-like; to be so glib, so perfectly consistent, that it seemed as though there must be a weakness in the case, and that such perfection must have come from rehearsals. For that reason the jury decided against him, although he won the case afterwards on appeal.