"Yes," he said, "I'll lie to myself no more! I've got to have it or throw up the sponge. It was my own once, that wonderful gift--whatever it is. Once it was my own brain, unhelped, that sent the glow to my heart and the fire to my tongue--till words had glorious colours and pictures painted themselves out of nothing. Once it was my own mind that saw a problem as clear as crystal. But I wasn't content. I wanted the short cut, and this showed me the way. And now--now--I've dropped the reins. It's not Harry Sevier that wins cases--it's that bottle!" He began to stride up and down the narrow room; deep lines had etched themselves in the mobile face. "There was the Davencourt Case," he said to himself. "Not a shred of decent evidence to go on, and the whole court packed with prejudice, and he was as guilty as the devil. Yet I won! That was only a year ago, but I couldn't do it now--without what is in that decanter! All day yesterday I was heavy, my mind was as blank as a glacier. In the cross-examination I couldn't see a foot before me. But for this half-hour it would go hard with my client at the finish. As it is I wouldn't want a better foil than old Maitland for the prosecution. How he has slaved over his witnesses! I might have made some of the testimony that sounded so damning look like a cocked-hat if I had gone about it in his laborious way. For this 'Paddy the Brick' has plenty of friends, for all his crookedness. Half the logging-camp, apparently, chipped in to make up my retaining-fee. But pshaw! what's the use? I can get him off without it. In the last analysis it's feeling, not facts, that will sway them--feeling first, and then conscience. Every man of them must see _himself_, first shivering in the shoes of my thief, and then wearing the Judge's gown. When the psychological moment comes there is only to drive home the fallibility of circumstantial evidence and sear those twelve slow-going, matter-of-fact brains with a sense of the inherent perversity of appearances!" He smiled bitterly. "Especially," he added, "when there's whisky in the story. My client was drunk as a boiled owl when he was arrested--the stolen plunder might easily have been put on him, as he claims it was. The jury will understand that. There's probably not a man on it who doesn't get squiffy now and then." He stopped in his walk and held up a hand against the light--it wavered ever so little. The draught had not yet brought its accustomed poise of nerve--its tense certitude, its mental glow and confidence. With an impatient gesture he turned again to the cabinet. "One used to do it," he said; "it will evidently take more to-day to restore our bold Turpin to his career on the highway!" He set the empty glass in its place with a short laugh. "Curious," he said. "If he _were_ innocent and drink _had_ got him into this scrape, there would be a poetic justice in drink's getting him out!"