He could not, however, control the malice he felt, and he
was smarting from Crozier's retorts. He had a vanity easily lacerated,
and he was now too savage to abate the ferocity of his forensic attack.
He sat down, however, with a sure sense of failure. Every orator knows
when he is beating the air, even when his audience is quiet and
apparently attentive.
The crown attorney was a man of the serenest method and of cold,
unforensic logic. He had a deadly precision of speech, a very remarkable
memory, and a great power of organising and assembling his facts. There
was little left of Burlingame's appeal when he sat down. He declared
that to discredit Crozier's evidence because he chose to use another
name than his own, because he was parted from his wife, because he left
England practically penniless to earn an honest living--no one had shown
it was not--was the last resort of legal desperation. It was an
indefensible thing to endeavour to create prejudice against a man because
of his own evidence given with great frankness. Not one single word of
evidence had the defence brought to discredit Crozier, save by Crozier's
own word of mouth; and if Crozier had cared to commit perjury, the
defence could not have proved him guilty of it. Even if Crozier had not
told the truth as it was, counsel for the defence would have found it
impossible to convict him of falsehood.
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