He probably thought the display worth very little from a picturesque point of view; the weak voice; the colourless personality as incapable of an attitude as a bed-post, the very fatuity of the clenched hand so ineffectual at that time and place--no, it wasn't worth much.

And then, for him, an accomplished craftsman in his trade, thinking was distinctly "bad business." His business was to write a readable account.

But I who had nothing to write, I permitted myself to use my mind as we sat before our still untouched glasses.

And the disclosure which so often rewards a moment of detachment from mere visual impressions gave me a thrill very much approaching a shudder.

I seemed to understand that, with the shock of the agonies and perplexities of his trial, the imagination of that man, whose moods, notions and motives wore frequently an air of grotesque mystery--that his imagination had been at last roused into activity.