“Very well,” said Mr. Cavendish.  “Is your signature at the foot of that assignment?”

“It is not, sir.”

“Perhaps those are not the signatures of the witnesses,” said Mr. Cavendish, with an angry sneer.

“Two of them, I have no doubt, are forgeries,” responded Mr. Balfour, with an excited voice.

Mr. Cavendish knew that it would do no good to manifest anger; so he laughed.  Then he sat down by the side of Mr. Belcher, and said something to him, and they both laughed together.

“That’s all,” he said, nodding to the witness.

“May it please the Court,” said Mr. Balfour, “we got along so well with the question of identity that, with the leave of the defendant’s counsel, I propose, in order to save the time of the Court, that we push our inquiries directly into the validity of this assignment.  This is the essential question, and the defendant has only to establish the validity of the instrument to bring the case to an end at once.  This done, the suit will be abandoned.”

“Certainly,” said Mr. Cavendish, rising.  “I agree to the scheme with the single provision on behalf of the defendant, that he shall not be debarred from his pleading of a denial of profits, in any event.”

“Agreed,” said Mr. Balfour.

“Very well,” said Mr. Cavendish.  “I shall call Cornelius Phipps, the only surviving witness of the assignment.”

But Cornelius Phipps did not appear when he was called.  A second call produced the same result.  He was not in the house.  He was sought for in every possible retreat about the house, but could not be found.  Cornelius Phipps had mysteriously disappeared.

After consulting Mr. Belcher, Mr. Cavendish announced that the witness who had been called was essential at the present stage of the case.  He thought it possible that in the long confinement of the court-room, Phipps had become suddenly ill, and gone home.  He hoped, for the honor of the plaintiff in the case, that nothing worse had happened, and suggested that the Court adjourn until the following day.

And the Court adjourned, amid tumultuous whispering.  Mr. Belcher was apparently oblivious of the fact, and sat and stared, until touched upon the shoulder by his counsel, when he rose and walked out upon a world and into an atmosphere that had never before seemed so strange and unreal.

CHAPTER XXVII.

IN WHICH PHIPPS IS NOT TO BE FOUND, AND THE GENERAL IS CALLED UPON TO DO HIS OWN LYING.

At the appointed hour on the following morning, the Court resumed its session.  The plaintiff and defendant were both in their places, with their counsel, and the witnesses of the previous day were all in attendance.  Among the little group of witnesses there were two or three new faces—­a professional-looking gentleman with spectacles; a thin-faced, carefully-dressed, slender man, with a lordly air, and the bearing of one who carried the world upon his shoulders and did not regard it as much of a burden; and, last, our old friend Sam Yates.