He hated Witt as keenly as he hated Oxford.

All that he demanded from the world was peace and quietness, and the world would not grant him these inexpensive commodities.

He had not asked to be buried in Westminster Abbey; his interment had been forced upon him.

And if he chose to call himself by another name, why should he not do so?
If he chose to marry a simple woman, and live in a suburb and paint pictures at ten pounds each, why should he not do so?
Why should he be dragged out of his tranquillity because two persons in whom he felt no interest whatever, had quarrelled over his pictures?
Why should his life have been made unbearable in Putney by the extravagant curiosity of a mob of journalists?
And then, why should he be compelled, by means of a piece of blue paper, to go through the frightful ordeal and flame of publicity in a witness-box?
That was the crowning unmerited torture, the unthinkable horror which had broken his sleep for many nights.
In the box he certainly had all the appearance of a trapped criminal, with his nervous movements, his restless lowered eyes, and his faint, hard voice that he could scarcely fetch up from his throat.

Nervousness lined with resentment forms excellent material for the plastic art of a cross-examining counsel, and Pennington, K.C., itched to be at work.
Crepitude, K.C., Oxford's counsel, was in less joyous mood.