Through the unsavoury throng we hurried, and up a staircase to a landing from which several passages diverged.

Into one of these passages--a sort of "dark entry," furnished with a cage-like gate of iron bars--we passed to a black door, on which was painted the inscription, "Old Court.
Counsel and clerks." Anstey held the door open for us, and we passed through into the court, which at once struck me with a sense of disappointment.

It was smaller than I had expected, and plain and mean to the point of sordidness.

The woodwork was poor, thinly disguised by yellow graining, and slimy with dirt wherever a dirty hand could reach it.

The walls were distempered a pale, greenish grey; the floor was of bare and dirty planking, and the only suggestions of dignity or display were those offered by the canopy over the judge's seat--lined with scarlet baize and surmounted by the royal arms--the scarlet cushions of the bench, and the large, circular clock in the gallery, which was embellished with a gilded border and asserted its importance by a loud, aggressive tick.
Following Anstey and Thorndyke into the well of the court, we were ushered into one of the seats reserved for counsel--the third from the front--where we sat down and looked about us, while our two friends seated themselves in the front bench next to the central table.