“I cannot be positive,” the man replied, “but, to the best of my recollection, the lady was a passenger in the rear car.”

“With whom was she travelling?”

“With a gentleman whom I afterward learned was her husband, a little boy some two or three years of age, and the child’s nurse.”

“Were there any other children on the train?”

“Yes, one, a boy of about the same age, riding in the same car in company with an elderly gentleman.”

“Did you see either of these children after the disaster?”

“I saw one of them.”

“Which one?”

“I supposed, at the time, that it was the one who accompanied the old gentleman.”

“Why did you suppose so?”

“Because I saw a child who bore marks of having been in the wreck riding in the car which carried the rescued passengers to the city, and he was in company with an elderly man.”

“Was he the same elderly man whom you saw with the child before the accident?”

“I cannot say; my attention was not particularly called to him before the accident; but I supposed he was the one, from the fact of his having the child with him.”

“Could you, at this time, recognize the man whom you saw with the child after the accident?”

“I think so.  I took especial notice of him then.”

“Look at this old gentleman, sitting by me,” said Sharpman, waving his hand toward Craft, “and tell me whether he is the one.”

The man turned his eyes on Old Simon, and looked at him closely for a full minute.

“Yes,” he replied, “I believe he is the one.  He has grown older and thinner, but I do not think I am mistaken.”

Craft nodded his head mildly in assent, and Sharpman continued:—­

“Did you take particular notice of the child’s clothing as you saw it after the accident; could you recognize, at this time, the principal articles of outside wear that he had on?”

“I think I could.”

Sharpman paused as if in thought.

After he had whispered for a moment with Craft, he said to the witness:—­

“That is all, for the present, Mr. Merrick.”  Then he turned to the opposing counsel and said:—­

“Mr. Goodlaw, you may take the witness.”

Goodlaw fixed his glasses more firmly on his nose, consulted briefly with his client, and then began his cross-examination.

After drawing out much of the personal history of the witness, he went with him into the details of the Cherry Brook disaster.

Finally he asked:—­

“Did you know Robert Burnham in his lifetime?”

“A gentleman by that name called on me a week after the accident to make inquiries about his son.”

“Did you say to him, at that time, that the child must have perished in the wreck?”

“I think I did; yes, sir.”

“On what did you base your opinion?”

“On several circumstances.  The nurse with whom he was sitting was killed outright; it would seem to have been impossible for any one occupying that seat to have escaped instant death, since the other car struck and rested at just that point.  Again, there were but two children on the train.  It took it for granted that the old man and child whom I saw together after the accident were the same ones whom I had seen together before it occurred.”