Bertram soon learnt--now for the first time, for Harcourt himself had said nothing on the subject--that his friend's name was already favourably known, and that he had begun that career to which he so steadily looked forward. His ice was already broken: he had been employed as junior counsel in the great case of Pike _v_ Perch; and had distinguished himself not a little by his success in turning white into black. "Then you had decidedly the worst of it?" said Bertram to him, when the matter was talked over between them. "Oh, decidedly; but, nevertheless, we pulled through. My opinion all along was that none of the Pikes had a leg to stand upon. There were three of them. But I won't bore you with the case. You'll hear more of it some day, for it will be on again before the lords-justices in the spring." "You were Pike's counsel?" "One of them--the junior. I had most of the fag and none of the honour. That's of course." "And you think that Perch ought to have succeeded?" "Well, talking to you, I really think he ought; but I would not admit that to any one else. Sir Ricketty Giggs led for us, and I know he thought so too at first; though he got so carried away by his own eloquence at last that I believe he changed his mind." "Well, if I'd thought that, I wouldn't have held the brief for all the Pikes that ever swam." "If a man's case be weak, then, he is to have no advocate? That's your idea of justice." "If it be so weak that no one can be got to think it right, of course he should have no advocate." "And how are you to know till you have taken the matter up and sifted it? But what you propose is Quixotic in every way. It will not hold water for a moment. You know as well as I do that no barrister would keep a wig on his head who pretended to such a code of morals in his profession. Such a doctrine is a doctrine of puritanism--or purism, which is worse. All this moonshine was very well for you when you talked of being a clergyman, or an author, or a painter. One allows outsiders any amount of nonsense in their criticism, as a matter of course. But it won't do now, Bertram. If you mean to put your shoulders to the wheel in the only profession which, to my mind, is worthy of an educated man's energies, you must get rid of those cobwebs." "Upon my word, Harcourt, when you hit on a subject you like, your eloquence is wonderful. Sir Ricketty Giggs himself could hardly say more to defend his sins of forty years' endurance."