Anstey held the door open for us, and we passed through into the court, which at once struck me with a sense of disappointment.  It was smaller than I had expected, and plain and mean to the point of sordidness.  The woodwork was poor, thinly disguised by yellow graining, and slimy with dirt wherever a dirty hand could reach it.  The walls were distempered a pale, greenish grey; the floor was of bare and dirty planking, and the only suggestions of dignity or display were those offered by the canopy over the judge’s seat—­lined with scarlet baize and surmounted by the royal arms—­the scarlet cushions of the bench, and the large, circular clock in the gallery, which was embellished with a gilded border and asserted its importance by a loud, aggressive tick.

Following Anstey and Thorndyke into the well of the court, we were ushered into one of the seats reserved for counsel—­the third from the front—­where we sat down and looked about us, while our two friends seated themselves in the front bench next to the central table.  Here, at the extreme right, a barrister—­presumably the counsel for the prosecution—­was already in his place and absorbed in the brief that lay on the desk before him.  Straight before us were the seats for the jury, rising one above the other, and at their side the witness-box.  Above us on the right was the judge’s seat, and immediately below it a structure somewhat resembling a large pew or a counting-house desk, surmounted by a brass rail, in which a person in a grey wig—­the clerk of the court—­was mending a quill pen.  On our left rose the dock—­suggestively large and roomy—­enclosed at the sides with high glazed frames; and above it, near the ceiling, was the spectators’ gallery.

“What a hideous place!” exclaimed Juliet, who separated me from Mrs. Hornby.  “And how sordid and dirty everything looks!”

“Yes,” I answered.  “The uncleanness of the criminal is not confined to his moral being; wherever he goes, he leaves a trail of actual, physical dirt.  It is not so long ago that the dock and the bench alike used to be strewn with medicinal herbs, and I believe the custom still survives of furnishing the judge with a nosegay as a preventive of jail-fever.”

“And to think that Reuben should be brought to a place like this!” Juliet continued bitterly; “to be herded with such people as we saw downstairs!”

She sighed and looked round at the benches that rose behind us, where a half-dozen reporters were already seated and apparently in high spirits at the prospect of a sensational case.

Our conversation was now interrupted by the clatter of feet on the gallery stairs, and heads began to appear over the wooden parapet.  Several junior counsel filed into the seats in front of us; Mr. Lawley and his clerk entered the attorney’s bench; the ushers took their stand below the jury-box; a police officer seated himself at a desk in the dock; and inspectors, detectives and miscellaneous officers began to gather in the entries or peer into the court through the small glazed openings in the doors.