ighted that
the first answer was so easy and so plausible. "I was not aware that it
was necessary, until so informed by Mr. Cavendish."

"Was Mr. Benedict's insanity considered hopeless from the first?"

"No," replied Mr. Belcher, cheerfully; "we were quite hopeful that we
should bring him out of it."

"He had lucid intervals, then."

"Yes, sir."

"Was that the reason why, the next day after the alleged assignment, you
wrote him a letter, urging him to make the assignment, and offering him
a royalty for the use of his patents?"

"I never wrote any such letter, sir. I never sent him any such letter,
sir."

"You sent him to the asylum, did you?"

"I co-operated with others, sir, and paid the bills," said Mr. Belcher,
with emphasis.

"Did you ever visit the asylum when he was there?"

"I did, sir."

"Did you apply to the superintendent for liberty to secure his signature
to a paper?"

"I do not remember that I did. It would have been an unnatural thing for
me to do. If I did, it was a paper on some subordinate affair. It was
some years ago, and the details of the visit did not impress themselves
upon my memory."

"How did you obtain the letters of Nicholas Johnson and James Ramsey? I
ask this, because they are not addressed to you."

"I procured them of Sam Yates, in anticipation of the trial now in
progress here. The witnesses were dead, and I thought they would help me
in establishing the genuineness of their signatures."

"What reason had you to anticipate this trial?"

"Well, sir, I am accustomed to providing for all contingencies. That is
the way I was made, sir. It seemed to me quite probable that Benedict,
if living, would forget what he had done before his insanity, and that,
if he were dead, some friend of his boy would engage in the suit on his
behalf. I procured the autographs after I saw his boy in your hands,
sir."

"So you had not seen these particular signatures at the time when the
alleged assignment was made."

"No, sir, I had not seen them."

"And you simply procured them to use as a defense in a suit which seemed
probable, or possible, and which now, indeed, is in progress of trial?"

"That is about as clear a statement of the fact as I can make, sir;"
and Mr. Belcher bowed and smiled.

"I suppose, Mr. Belcher," said Mr. Balfour, "that it seems very strange
to you that the plaintiff should have forgotten his signature."

"Not at all, sir. On the contrary, I regard it as the