testator?"

"I have."

"Does that description apply to the person whose remains you examined?"

"In a general way, it does."

"I must ask you for a direct answer--yes or no. Does it apply?"

"Yes. But I ought to say that my estimate of the height of the deceased
is only approximate."

"Quite so. Judging from your examination of those remains and from Mr.
Jellicoe's description, might those remains be the remains of the
testator, John Bellingham?"

"Yes, they might."

On receiving this admission Mr. Loram sat down, and Mr. Heath
immediately rose to cross-examine.

"When you examined these remains, Doctor Summers, did you discover any
personal peculiarities which would enable you to identify them as the
remains of any one individual rather than any other individual of
similar size, age, and proportions?"

"No. I found nothing that would identify the remains as those of any
particular individual."

As Mr. Heath asked no further questions, the witness received his
dismissal, and Mr. Loram informed the Court that that was his case. The
judge bowed somnolently, and then Mr. Heath rose to address the Court on
behalf of the respondent. It was not a long speech, nor was it enriched
by any displays of florid rhetoric; it concerned itself exclusively with
a rebutment of the arguments of the counsel for the petitioner.

Having briefly pointed out that the period of absence was too short to
give rise of itself to the presumption of death, Mr. Heath continued:

"The claim therefore rests upon evidence of a positive character. My
learned friend asserts that the testator is presumably dead, and it is
for him to prove what he has affirmed. Now, has he done this? I submit
that he has not. He has argued with great force and ingenuity that the
testator, being a bachelor, a solitary man without wife or child,
dependent or master, public or private office or duty, or any bond,
responsibility, or any other condition limiting his freedom of action,
had no reason or inducement for absconding. This is my learned friend's
argument, and he has conducted it with so much skill and ingenuity that
he has not only succeeded in proving his case; he has proved a great
deal too much. For if it is true, as my learned friend so justly argues,
that a man thus unfettered by obligations of any kind has no reason for
disappearing, is it not even more true that he has no reason for _not_
disappearing? My friend has urged that the testator was a