“Who is that fine-looking, fine-featured, florid man?”

“That is Crowell, from Warren.  Mark him and see how studied are all his motions.  He tears up that paper with an air and grace only reached by long and intense practice and study.  He is a little unpopular, but is a man of ability, and is often effective with a jury.  The trouble is, his shadow is immense, and falls all about him on every thing, and he sees every thing through it.”

“That young, dark-eyed handsome man is Labe Sherman, admitted last year.  He and Ranney are the two young men of the democracy; but there is enough of Ranney to make two of him.  He is a fine advocate.”

“Look at that tall, rather over-dressed, youngish man.”

“The one with weak, washed-out gray eyes?”

“Yes.”

“Does he know anything?”

“Not a devilish thing.  His strong point, where he concentrates in force, is his collar and stock; from that he radiates into shirt bosom, and fades off into coat and pants.  Law!  He don’t know the difference between a bill in Chancery and the Pope’s Bull.  Here’s another knowledge-cuss.  He’s from Warren—­McKnight.  His great effort is to keep himself in—­to hold himself from mischief, and working general ruin.  He knows perfectly well that if he should let himself loose in a case, in open court, the other side would stand no chance at all; and his sense of right prevents his putting forth his real power.  It would be equal to a denial of justice to the other side.”

“An instance where the severity of the law is tempered and modified by equity,” remarked Bart.

“Exactly.”

“Who is that man on the left of Bowen, and beyond, with that splendid head and face, and eyes like Juno, if a man can have such eyes?”

“That is Dave Tod, son of old Judge Tod, of Warren.  Two things are in his way:  he is a democrat, and lazy as thunder; otherwise he would be among the first—­and it will do to keep him in mind anyway.  There is some sort of a future for him.”

“Here’s another minister of the law in the temple of justice—­that man with the cape on.  He always wears it, and the boys irreverently call him Cape Cod—­Ward of Connaught.  He puts a paper into the clerk’s office and calls it commencing a suit.  He puts in another and calls it a declaration.  If anybody makes himself a party, and offers to go to trial with him, and nobody objects, he has a trial of something, at some time, and if he gets a verdict or gets licked it is equally incomprehensible to him, and to everybody else.

“There are Hitchcock and Perkins, of Painesville, whom you know.  What great wide staring eyes Hitchcock has:  but they look into things.  And see how elegantly Perkins is dressed.  I’d like to hear Frank Wade on that costume—­but Perkins is a good lawyer, for all that.  Look at that stout, broad, club-faced man—­that’s old Dick Matoon.  You see the lower part of his face was made for larger upper works; and after puckering and drawing the under lip in all he can, he speaks in a grain whistle through an opening still left, around under one ear.  He knows no more law than does necessity; but is cunning, and acts upon his one rule, ‘that it is always safe to continue.’