Henry Cruickshank was an able man and, what was rarer a fastidious politician.

He had held office in the Dominion Cabinet, and had resigned it because of a difference with his colleagues in the application of a principle; they called him, after a British politician of lofty but abortive views, the Canadian Renfaire.

He had that independence of personality, that intellectual candour, and that touch of magnetism which combine to make a man interesting in his public relations.

Cruickshank's name alone would have filled the courthouse, and people would have gone away quoting him.
From the first word of the case for the prosecution there was that in the leading counsel's manner--a gravity, a kindness, an inclination to neglect the commoner methods of scoring--that suggested, with the sudden chill of unexpectedly bad news, a foregone conclusion.

The reality of his feeling reference to the painful position of the defendant's father, the sincerity of his regret on behalf of the bank, for the deplorable exigency under which proceedings had been instituted, spread a kind of blankness through the court; men frowned thoughtfully, and one or two ladies shed furtive tears.