He had not thought of Mr. Finn when he saw the man hurrying along,
nor had he troubled his mind about the man. That was the end of Lord
Fawn's evidence-in-chief, which he would gladly have prolonged to the
close of the day could he thereby have postponed the coming horrors
of his cross-examination. But there he was,--in the clutches of
the odious, dirty, little man, hating the little man, despising
him because he was dirty, and nothing better than an Old Bailey
barrister,--and yet fearing him with so intense a fear!
Mr. Chaffanbrass smiled at his victim, and for a moment was quite
soft with him,--as a cat is soft with a mouse. The reporters
could hardly hear his first question,--"I believe you are an
Under-Secretary of State?" Lord Fawn acknowledged the fact. Now it
was the case that in the palmy days of our hero's former career he
had filled the very office which Lord Fawn now occupied, and that
Lord Fawn had at the time filled a similar position in another
department. These facts Mr. Chaffanbrass extracted from his
witness,--not without an appearance of unwillingness, which was
produced, however, altogether by the natural antagonism of the
victim to his persecutor; for Mr.
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