Fortunately for Bell and the men who upheld him, they were defended by two master-lawyers who have seldom, if ever, had an equal for team work and efficiency--Chauncy Smith and James J. Storrow. These two men were marvellously well mated. Smith was an old-fashioned attorney of the Websterian sort, dignified, ponderous, and impressive. By 1878, when he came in to defend the little Bell Company against the towering Western Union, Smith had become the most noted patent lawyer in Boston. He was a large, thick-set man, a reminder of Benjamin Franklin, with clean-shaven face, long hair curling at the ends, frock coat, high collar, and beaver hat. Storrow, on the contrary, was a small man, quiet in manner, conversational in argument, and an encyclopedia of definite information. He was so thorough that, when he became a Bell lawyer, he first spent an entire summer at his country home in Petersham, studying the laws of physics and electricity. He was never in the slightest degree spectacular. Once only, during the eleven years of litigation, did he lose control of his temper. He was attacking the credibility of a witness whom he had put on the stand, but who had been tampered with by the opposition lawyers. "But this man is your own witness," protested the lawyers. "Yes," shouted the usually soft-speaking Storrow; "he WAS my witness, but now he is YOUR LIAR." The efficiency of these two men was greatly increased by a third--Thomas D. Lockwood, who was chosen by Vail in 1879 to establish a Patent Department. Two years before, Lockwood had heard Bell lecture in Chickering Hall, New York, and was a "doubting Thomas." But a closer study of the telephone transformed him into an enthusiast. Having a memory like a filing system, and a knack for invention, Lockwood was well fitted to create such a department. He was a man born for the place. And he has seen the number of electrical patents grow from a few hundred in 1878 to eighty thousand in 1910.