t is rather a brutal thing to make a man's own child give
evidence against him. Halloo! Just look at Raeburn! That man's either a
consummate actor, or else a living impersonation of righteous anger."

"No acting there," replied the other, putting up his eyeglass again.
"It's lucky dueling is a thing of the past or I expect Pogson would
have a bullet in his heart before the day was over. I don't wonder he's
furious, poor fellow! Now, then here's old Cringer working himself up
into his very worst temper!"

The whispered dialogue was interrupted for a few minutes but was
continued at intervals.

"By Jove, what a voice she's got! The jury will be flints if they are
not influenced by it. Ah, you great brute! I wouldn't have asked her
that question for a thousand pounds! How lovely she looks when she
blushes! He'll confuse her, though, as sure as fate. No, not a bit of
it! That was dignified, wasn't it? How the words rang, 'Of course not!'
I say, Jack, this will be as good as a lesson in elocution for us!"

"Raeburn looks up at that for the first time. Well, poor devil! However
much baited, he can, at any rate, feel proud of his daughter."

Then came a long pause. For the fire of questions was so sharp that
the two would not break the thread by speaking. Once or twice
some particularly irritating question was ruled by the judge to be
inadmissible, upon which Mr. Cringer looked, in a hesitatingly courteous
manner, toward him, and obeyed orders with a smiling deference; then,
facing round upon Erica, with a little additional venom, he visited his
annoyance upon her by exerting all his unrivaled skill in endeavoring to
make her contradict herself.

"You'll make nothing of this one, Cringer," one of his friends had
said to him at the beginning of Erica's evidence. And he had smiled
confidently by way of reply. All the more was he now determined not
to be worsted by a young girl whom he ought to be able to put out of
countenance in ten minutes.

The result of this was that, in the words of the newspaper reports,
"the witness's evidence was not concluded when the court rose." This was
perhaps the greatest part of the trial to Erica. She had hoped, not only
for her own, but for her father's sake, that her evidence might all be
taken in one day, and Mr. Cringer, while really harming his own cause
by prolonging her evidence, inflicted no slight punishment on the most
troublesome witness he had ever had to deal with.

The next