The opening speech is a prologue and it does not argue. Counsel will not be permitted to argue his case in his opening, for his opponent will object and the Court will often say, warningly, "Counselor, you are summing up." This limitation, however, is in reality an advantage, not merely because it applies to both sides, but for the reason that no lawyer with any sense of dramatic values would anticipate his _denouement_. Argument is apt to be chilling unless the decision sought for can be discerned, however dimly, without it. And how are the jury to frame their decision before the evidence has been presented? The jury should be interested in Miss Becky Sharp and prepared to understand her testimony, but, before they have heard her story from witnesses who know, they will not be favorably impressed by urgings that she was wronged or badly treated. There is usually leniency in regard to the length of the opening, because it is well recognized that few witnesses can tell a connected story, or tell it well. From the old French story of the lawyer who began _avant le creation du monde_, and the judge who asked him to pass on _au deluge_, down to the usual modern method of nagging the lawyer into stating only the skeleton of the action, there are various degrees of eloquence, varying naturally according to the importance of the case. A wonderful thing the prologue may be in its restraint and picturesque vividness, and, not least, in its clarity. Confused business dealings may be described so that important sums, figures, and dates will be remembered and recognized when they appear again in the evidence. Counsel, for the time, occupies the center of the stage; his course is in his hands to make or mar. He reaches the end of his speech, bows, and the first witness is called. Before the testimony begins the judge looks at the defendant's counsel and asks him whether he wishes to state his defense. There is a different practice in this regard in different courts. Some insist that the defendant ought to tell at once what his side is about, others that the defendant should wait until the plaintiff is through all his evidence and has rested; then at the beginning of the defendant's case the defendant's lawyer opens and makes his introduction. The difference between these two manners of proceeding is so essential that it may be explained. On the one hand the lawyer feels that he should not be compelled to give away what he is going to do, how he proposes to meet the attack, whether he will lie in ambush and snipe the plaintiff as he comes on or intrench behind a rampart and meet him with the full force of his battery of evidence. He may be planning to make a sudden sally after the plaintiff has shot his arrows and exhausted all his ammunition. The lawyer feels if he tells his plan of campaign he loses the advantage of generalship.