Men eminently advantageous for that fatal service.
Eminently advantageous,--inasmuch as it mattered not one atom to them what was spoken in their ear either by God or by man.
1.

Now, to begin with, this churlish old man had already earned for himself a very evil name.

For what name could well be more full of evil memories and of evil omens than just this name of Prejudice?
Just consider what prejudice is.

Prejudice, when we stop over it and take it to pieces and look well at it,--prejudice is so bad and so abominable that you would not believe it could be so bad till you had looked at it and at how it acts in your own case.

For prejudice gives judgment on your case and gives orders for your execution before your defence has been heard, before your witnesses have been called, before your summons has been served, ay, and even before your indictment has been drawn out.
What a scandal and what an uproar a malfeasance of justice like that would cause if it were to take place in any of our courts of law! Only, the thing is impossible; you cannot even imagine it.