It was a fighting case throughout, fought to a finish on each tiny point as it came up, dragging, in the mere matter of time, interminably, yet the people of Canaan (not only those who succeeded in penetrating to the court-room, but the others who hung about the corridors, or outside the building, and the great mass of stay-at-homes who read the story in the Tocsin) found each moment of it enthralling enough. The State's attorney, fearful of losing so notorious a case, and not underestimating his opponent, had modestly summoned others to his aid; and the attorney for the defence, single-handed, faced "an array of legal talent such as seldom indeed had hollered at this bar"; faced it good-naturedly, an eyebrow crooked up and his head on one side, most of the time, yet faced it indomitably. He had a certain careless and disarming smile when he lost a point, which carried off the defeat as of only humorous account and not at all part of the serious business in hand; and in his treatment of witnesses, he was plausible, kindly, knowing that in this case he had no intending perjurer to entrap; brought into play the rare and delicate art of which he was a master, employing in his questions subtle suggestions and shadings of tone and manner, and avoiding words of debatable and dangerous meanings;--a fine craft, often attempted by blunderers to their own undoing, but which, practised by Joseph Louden, made inarticulate witnesses articulate to the precise effects which he desired. This he accomplished as much by the help of the continuous fire of objections from the other side as in spite of them. He was infinitely careful, asking never an ill-advised question for the other side to use to his hurt, and, though exhibiting only a pleasant easiness of manner, was electrically alert.