"Is the State ready to proceed?" came the case-weary accents from the bench. "We are ready." Chippen's young voice wobbled uncertainly. "The defendant ready?" "If the Court please," in Mabry's meticulous accents, "my colleagues--in a moment----" The judge leaned back, closing his eyes. A sudden hush at the door. A stretching of necks from all the fringes of the room. Walking daintily, with a glaze of dignity which never lost its underwash of the furtive, came Meyer Garfunkel, youngest of the firm. Spence leaned forward to Pelham. "Biggest crook in six states! Does all their dirtiest jobs.... They always come in this way; it impresses the courthouse crowd." The door swung again; a succession of breathless "There he is!"-es, as Colonel Lysander G. Pugh stamped heavily in, with his invariable atmosphere of busied haste, bowing affably left and right, his weathered broad-brim clutched beside his brief case. Another shifting of interest. Tipton Leach, narrow-eyed, a permanent sneer around his mouth, walking slowly, speculatively. "He is the brains," continued Spence. "The corporations fear him like sin, in damage cases. He bleeds them and his clients indiscriminately. But he knows more law than all the local bench." Last of all, preceded by his law clerk, Zebulun Hilary himself, his little red face, under the thinned mop of white hair, sticking out of his wide collar like a turtle's. "Over eighty, and indestructible! Even his conscience is asbestos." There was a leisurely deliberation among the five counsel for the defendant. Five heads came together, five brains bent their scheming toward freeing the accused negro, ten eyes quivered with satisfaction at the prospect. "Defendant ready?" The jaded judge roused himself to make this interjection. Colonel Pugh rose in sallow majesty, his vulture eye sweeping the front half of the room in indiscriminate defiance of the court, the State, and, if necessary, the whole United States. Catch Lysander G. Pugh unready? Impossible! In precise affability his round tones rolled out. "The defendant is ready, if it please Your Honor." He sat down in complacent vindication. An irrepressible ripple of appreciation quivered through the place. Here was a lawyer who knew how to law! The plea of "not guilty" was entered; the panel of talesmen called from the jury room. Spence leaned over to Pelham again. "First case since the Whitney scandal when all four have appeared together. They have the perfect system, Judson. Garfunkel does the second-story work; Leach knows enough law for all four of them; Zeb Hilary and Colonel Pugh get the business. They belong to everything--there isn't a lodge of any kind that they don't flock to. These two go into every political fight, one on one side, one on the other; they get 'em coming and going. It'll be a treat to hear them address the jury." He closed his eyes expressively. "Whew!"