With Mr. Chaffanbrass, who quite
late in life had consented to take a silk gown, was to be associated
Mr. Serjeant Birdbolt,--who was said to be employed in order that the
case might be in safe hands should the strength of Mr. Chaffanbrass
fail him at the last moment; and Mr. Snow, who was supposed to handle
a witness more judiciously than any of the rising men, and that
subtle, courageous, eloquent, and painstaking youth, Mr. Golightly,
who now, with no more than ten or fifteen years' practice, was
already known to be earning his bread and supporting a wife and
family.
But the glory of this trial would not depend chiefly on the array of
counsel, nor on the fact that the Lord Chief Justice himself would be
the judge, so much as on the social position of the murdered man and
of the murderer. Noble lords and great statesmen would throng the
bench of the court to see Phineas Finn tried, and all the world who
could find an entrance would do the same to see the great statesmen
and the noble lords. The importance of such an affair increases
like a snowball as it is rolled on.
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