en four experts out of five are rank
impostors, a set of theorists, who go by arbitrary rules framed in the
closet, and not by large and laborious comparison with indisputable
documents. These charlatans are not aware that five thousand cramped and
tremulous but genuine signatures are written every day by honest men, and
so they denounce every cramped or tremulous writing as a forgery. The
varieties in a man's writing, caused by his writing with his glove on or
off, with a quill or a bad steel pen, drunk or sober, calm or agitated,
in full daylight or dusk, etc., etc., all this is a dead letter to them,
and they have a bias toward suspicion of forgery; and a banker's clerk,
with his mere general impression, is better evidence than they are. But I
am an artist of a very different stamp. I never reason _a priori._ I
compare; and I have no bias. I never will have. The judges know this and
the pains and labor I take to be right, and they treat me with courtesy.
At Penfold's trial the matter was easy; I showed the court he had not
written the note, and my evidence crushed the indictment so far. How
could they have laughed at my testimony? Why, they acted upon it. Those
reports are not worth a straw. What journals were they cut out of?"

"I don't know," said Helen.

"Is there nothing on the upper margin to show?"

"No."

"What, not on either of them?"

"No."

"Show them me, please. This is a respectable paper, too, the _Daily
News."_

"Oh, Mr. Undercliff, how can you know that?"

"I don't _know_ it; but I think so, because the type and paper are like
that journal; the conductors are fond of clean type; so am I. Why, here
is another misstatement; the judge never said he aggravated his offense
by trying to cast a slur upon the Wardlaws. I'll swear the judge never
said a syllable of the kind. What he said was, 'You can speak in arrest
of judgment on grounds of law, but you must not impugn the verdict with
facts.' That was the only time he spoke to the prisoner at all. These
reports are not worth a button."

Helen lifted up her hands and eyes in despair. "Where shall I find the
truth?" said she. "The world is a quicksand."

"My dear young lady," said Mrs. Undercliff, "don't you be discouraged.
There must be a correct report in some paper or other."

"I am not so sure of that," said Undercliff. "I believe the reporters
trundle off to the nearest public-house together and light their pipes
with their notes, and settle