rt with a skill worthy of a veteran.
Instead of making a great ado over this weak point of the dream, he
shrugged his shoulders, and smiled faintly at the jury. The jurors, who
had been inclined, up to this time, to accept the dream as evidence,
without question, now decided that it was nonsense.

Marcus Wilkeson sat and listened, as if the scene and all the actors in
it, himself included, were only a dream too. The young girl's evidence,
of which he had not an inkling before, would have astounded him, if
anything could. But he had reached that point of reaction in the
emotions, where a stolid and complete apathy happily takes the place of
high nervous excitement. He somehow felt certain of his acquittal, but
was strangely benumbed to his fate.

He looked at the witness--the holy idol of all his romantic and tender
thoughts in days gone by--with unruffled composure. The marked stoicism
of his demeanor was not lost on the reporters, and they noticed it in
paragraphs to the effect that the prisoner exhibited a hardened
indifference during the most thrilling portion of the evidence.

QUESTION BY THE CORONER (_after thinking it over a bit_). "Who do you
say struck the fust blow, miss? Remember, now, you're on oath."

ANSWER. "My father, sir--or rather, I dreamed so."

The coroner was disappointed again, for he hoped that the witness would,
on second thought, fix the commencement of the actual assault on the
prisoner. "Your father, being old and kind o' feeble, struck a light
blow, I s'pose."

WITNESS. "No, sir--a heavy one, I should judge; for it appeared to cut
open Mr. Wilkeson's lip, and bruise his cheek. The blood seemed to run
down his face in a stream." Here little Pet exhibited signs of
faintness, which good Mrs. Crull stopped by an instant application of
the smelling bottle.

CORONER. "Mr. Wilkeson struck back a terrible blow in return, I s'pose."

WITNESS. "Yes, sir. He hit my father right in the eye, raising a black
and blue spot as large as a hen's egg." The painful recollection of this
part of the dream so overpowered the witness, that she burst into tears,
but was soon quieted by the motherly attentions of Mrs. Crull.

FOREMAN OF THE JURY. "I don't want to hurt the young lady's feelin's,
but this 'ere dream is all nonsense; and it strikes me we're a lot o'
fools to be listenin' to it. Why, Harry, you know, as well as I do, that
there wasn't no bruise on the old man's face, exceptin' the big one on
his