“I did not go upon the witness-stand to contradict this fairy tale; it did not seem to be worth the while.

“Consider it for a moment.  This youth says he came to my office last night and found me in the inner room in conversation with another person.  I shall not deny that.  Supposing it to be true, there was nothing strange or wrong in it, was there?  But what does this boy whom my learned friend has lauded to the skies for his manliness and honor do next?  Why, according to his own story, he steals into the darkness of the outer office and seats himself to listen to the conversation in the inner room, and hears—­what?  No good of himself certainly.  Eavesdroppers never do hear good of themselves.  But he thinks he hears the voice of a person whom no one in this court-room ever heard of or thought of before, nor has seen or heard of since—­a person who, I daresay, has existence only in this child’s imagination; he thinks he hears this person declare that he, Ralph, is not Robert Burnham’s son, and, by way of embellishing his tale, he adds statements which are still more absurd, statements on the strength of which my learned friend hopes to darken in your eyes the character of the counsel for the plaintiff.  I trust, gentlemen, that I am too well known at the bar of this court and in this community to have my moral standing swept away by such a flimsy falsehood as you see this to be.  And so, to-day, this child comes into court and declares, with solemn asseveration, that the evidence fixing his identity beyond dispute or question is all a lie; and what is this declaration worth?  His Honor will tell you, in his charge, I have no doubt, that this boy’s statement, founded, as he himself says, on hearsay, is valueless in law, and should have no weight in your minds.  But I do not ask you to base your judgment on technicalities of law.  I ask you to base it simply on the reasonable evidence in this case.

“What explanation there can be of this lad’s conduct, I have not, as yet, been ably, fully, to determine.

“I have tried, in my own mind, to throw the mantle of charity across him.  I have tried to think that, coming from an unaccustomed meal, his stomach loaded with rich food, he no sooner sank into the office chair than he fell asleep and dreamed.  It is not improbable.  The power of dreams is great on children’s minds, as all of you may know.  But in the face of these developments I can hardly bring myself to accept this theory.  There is too much method in the child’s madness.  It looks more like the outcome of some desperate move on the part of this defence to win the game which they have seen slipping from their control.  It looks like a deep-laid plan to rob my aged and honored client of the credit to which he is entitled for rescuing this boy at the risk of his life, for caring for him through poverty and disease, for finding him when his own mother had given him up for dead, and restoring him to the bosom of his family.  It looks as though