The court room was crowded at an early hour, before the arrival of judges, lawyers and prisoner.  There is no enjoyment so keen to certain minds as that of looking upon the slow torture of a human being on trial for life, except it be an execution; there is no display of human ingenuity, wit and power so fascinating as that made by trained lawyers in the trial of an important case, nowhere else is exhibited such subtlety, acumen, address, eloquence.

All the conditions of intense excitement meet in a murder trial.  The awful issue at stake gives significance to the lightest word or look.  How the quick eyes of the spectators rove from the stolid jury to the keen lawyers, the impassive judge, the anxious prisoner.  Nothing is lost of the sharp wrangle of the counsel on points of law, the measured decision’s of the bench; the duels between the attorneys and the witnesses.  The crowd sways with the rise and fall of the shifting, testimony, in sympathetic interest, and hangs upon the dicta of the judge in breathless silence.  It speedily takes sides for or against the accused, and recognizes as quickly its favorites among the lawyers.  Nothing delights it more than the sharp retort of a witness and the discomfiture of an obnoxious attorney.  A joke, even if it be a lame, one, is no where so keenly relished or quickly applauded as in a murder trial.

Within the bar the young lawyers and the privileged hangers-on filled all the chairs except those reserved at the table for those engaged in the case.  Without, the throng occupied all the seats, the window ledges and the standing room.  The atmosphere was already something horrible.  It was the peculiar odor of a criminal court, as if it were tainted by the presence, in different persons, of all the crimes that men and women can commit.

There was a little stir when the Prosecuting Attorney, with two assistants, made his way in, seated himself at the table, and spread his papers before him.  There was more stir when the counsel of the defense appeared.  They were Mr. Braham, the senior, and Mr. Quiggle and Mr. O’Keefe, the juniors.

Everybody in the court room knew Mr. Braham, the great criminal lawyer, and he was not unaware that he was the object of all eyes as he moved to his place, bowing to his friends in the bar.  A large but rather spare man, with broad shoulders and a massive head, covered with chestnut curls which fell down upon his coat collar and which he had a habit of shaking as a lion is supposed to shake his mane.  His face was clean shaven, and he had a wide mouth and rather small dark eyes, set quite too near together:  Mr. Braham wore a brown frock coat buttoned across his breast, with a rose-bud in the upper buttonhole, and light pantaloons.  A diamond stud was seen to flash from his bosom; and as he seated himself and drew off his gloves a heavy seal ring was displayed upon his white left hand.  Mr. Braham having seated himself, deliberately surveyed the entire house, made a remark to one of his assistants, and then taking an ivory-handled knife from his pocket began to pare his finger nails, rocking his chair backwards and forwards slowly.