There was much good-natured banter of this sort in the office.
Harwood was busy filing papers when Mr.Fitch summoned him to his private room on the day indicated.

Fitch was short, thin, and bald, with a clipped reddish beard, brown eyes, and a turn-up nose.

He was considered a better lawyer than Wright, who was the orator of the firm, and its reliance in dealing with juries.

In the preparation of briefs and in oral arguments before the Supreme Court, Fitch was the superior.
His personal peculiarities had greatly Interested Harwood; as, for example, Fitch's manner of locking himself in his room for days at a time while he was preparing to write a brief, denying himself to all visitors, and only occasionally calling for books from the library.
Then, when he had formulated his ideas, he summoned the stenographer and dictated at one sitting a brief that generally proved to be the reviewing court's own judgment of the case in hand.

Some of Fitch's fellow practitioners intimated at times that he was tricky.