said: "Would you like me to stay here, Miss Marsh?"

"Oh--please--please!" she said imploringly.

"It's impossible!" shouted the lawyer angrily. "I object."

"Nothing is impossible when a lady requests it," rejoined Tod
determinedly. "Go on with the examination! I'm going to stay--don't
trouble, Cooley--I'll find a chair."

He looked around and took a seat near the fireplace. Mr. Cooley, unable
to control himself, moved towards him with threatening gesture. In
another moment he would have attempted to eject him forcibly, but Jimmy
restrained him:

"Better let him stay," he whispered.

"Very well," grumbled the lawyer, "but young man--perfect silence!"

"Go on now," grinned Tod, "go on--never mind me."

The examiner resumed the questioning:

"Miss Marsh--you have stated on several occasions that when you came in
for your father's estate you would give large sums of money to various
charities?"

"Yes."

"Did you say you were going to"--he stopped and looked at a paper in his
hand. Reading, he went on--"found an institution for the development of
the psychic self in animals?"

"No!" she replied, with an emphatic shake of her head.

Dr. Zacharie threw up his hands with a gesture meant to express utter
disbelief in her denial.

"The money," went on Paula, "was to be expended for the prevention of
animal torture in the name of science."

Mr. Cooley now took a hand in the cross-examination.

"Isn't it a fact," he demanded, "that all these large bequests to
societies for the psychic development of monkies or mice or old ladies,
as the case may be, were made for the express purpose of preventing your
Uncle James and his family from participating in the enjoyment of the
family estate?"

"Exactly," answered Paula calmly.

Mr. Cooley gave vent to a noisy chuckle. Turning to Dr. McMutrie, he
said:

"Ah! That establishes irresponsibility."

"Quite so--quite so," chimed in Professor Bodley, trying to look alert
by peering over his spectacles.

But the lawyer's interference only earned for him a well-merited rebuke
from the head of the commission. Frigidly the examiner said:

"I prefer to draw my own conclusions, Mr. Cooley." Turning again to
Paula, he went on: "You left your church a year ago--why?"

"Because Mr. James Marsh is one of its chief pillars," she replied
spiritedly. "He prays the loudest and receives the most homage----"

Tod laughed outright.

"That's rather rough on you, Jimmy!"

Mr. Co