Duchy of Baden. Hotel accommodation of the more expensive sort began to
experience a strain on its resources. "It will be quite like the Durbar
without the elephants," exclaimed an enthusiastic lady who, to do her
justice, had never seen a Durbar. The general feeling was one of
thankfulness that the last of the strikes had been got over before the
date fixed for the hearing of the great suit.

As a reaction from the season of gloom and industrial strife that had
just passed away the agencies that purvey and stage-manage sensations
laid themselves out to do their level best on this momentous occasion.
Men who had made their reputations as special descriptive writers were
mobilised from distant corners of Europe and the further side of the
Atlantic in order to enrich with their pens the daily printed records of
the case; one word-painter, who specialised in descriptions of how
witnesses turn pale under cross-examination, was summoned hurriedly back
from a famous and prolonged murder trial in Sicily, where indeed his
talents were being decidedly wasted. Thumb-nail artists and expert kodak
manipulators were retained at extravagant salaries, and special dress
reporters were in high demand. An enterprising Paris firm of costume
builders presented the defendant Duchess with three special creations, to
be worn, marked, learned, and extensively reported at various critical
stages of the trial; and as for the cinematograph agents, their industry
and persistence was untiring. Films representing the Duke saying good-
bye to his favourite canary on the eve of the trial were in readiness
weeks before the event was due to take place; other films depicted the
Duchess holding imaginary consultations with fictitious lawyers or making
a light repast off specially advertised vegetarian sandwiches during a
supposed luncheon interval. As far as human foresight and human
enterprise could go nothing was lacking to make the trial a success.