is way to a large and
lucrative practice, behind his compeers in this particular, any
more than in the drier parts of the legal race.
A favourite at the Old Bailey, and eke at the Sessions, Mr.
Stryver had begun cautiously to hew away the lower staves of the
ladder on which he mounted. Sessions and Old Bailey had now to
summon their favourite, specially, to their longing arms; and
shouldering itself towards the visage of the Lord Chief Justice in
the Court of King’s Bench, the florid countenance of Mr. Stryver
might be daily seen, bursting out of the bed of wigs, like a great
sunflower pushing its way at the sun from among a rank gardenful
of flaring companions.
It had once been noted at the Bar, that while Mr. Stryver was a
glib man, and an unscrupulous, and a ready, and a bold, he had
not that faculty of extracting the essence from a heap of
statements, which is among the most striking and necessary of the
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
advocate’s accomplishments. But, a remarkable improvement
came upon him as to this. The more business he got, the greater
his power seemed to grow of getting at its pith and marrow; and
however late at night he sat carousing with Sydney Carton, he
always had his points at his fingers’ ends in the morning.
Sydney Carton, idlest and most unpromising of men, was
Stryver’s great ally.