The assembly was worthy of the suit and of the vast amount involved. It thrilled old Jessamine to be the man who dragged the metropolis itself to the bar of its own conscience, and demanded penance. The court was large and stately. In addition to the three judges of the Supreme Court, and the Chancellor, the state senators were gathered in judgment under the presidence of the Lieutenant Governor. The trial was as long as it was large. As attorney for the plaintiff, General Butler spoke for a day. Mr. Graham spent another day in defense of the city. RoBards had his day in court, but his spirit was quenched by the knowledge that he was heeded only as so much sand pouring through the throat of the hourglass. Webster, who sat and sweat and listened in silence, was the one thing waited for. The news that he was at last to speak packed the courtroom with spectators. The day was suffocating. The humidity thrust needles into the flesh, and the voice of Webster was like the thunder that prowls along the hills on a torrid afternoon. For five hours he spoke, and enchanted people who cared little what words made up his rhapsody. His presence was embodied majesty; his voice an apocalyptic trumpet; his gestures epic; his argument rolled along with the rhythm, the flood, the logic of an Iliad. The audience would have given him any verdict he asked. Old Jessamine wept with certainty of his triumph. It was sublime to be the theme of such a rhapsody, and when the old man heard his rights proclaimed and his wrongs denounced by Stentor himself, he felt himself an injured god. For five hours Webster—well, there was hardly a verb for what he did. Patty said that Webster just “websted.” Her word was as good as any. Then the court adjourned for the day and the spectators went out to breathe the common air. The exhausted orator was led into the Governor’s Room in the City Hall, where wine was brought him in quantity. He was soon refreshed enough to receive congratulations on his achievement. But he shook his head and groaned, “I was very uncomfortable. I felt as if I were addressing a packed jury.” The moan from the sick lion threw a great fear into old Jessamine’s heart, and he listened with terror next day to the long argument of the counselor who spoke for the city to a much diminished audience. Waiting for the court to reach a verdict was worse than the trial. And the verdict was doom—doom with damages. An almost unanimous decision condemned Jessamine to poverty and decreed that he had no claim against the city. Patty ran to her father’s side and upheld him, while her mother knelt and wept at his other elbow. But he was inconsolable.