The letters lingered, and the room seemed almost sensibly to sink in the awful silence.  Then the stillness was broken by a deep voice.  What lips it came from, no one knew, for all the borders of the room were as dark as night.  It seemed, as it echoed from side to side, to come from every part of the house:  “Mene, mene, tekel upharsin!” Such was the effect of these words upon the eager and excited, yet thoroughly solemnized crowd, that when the shutters were thrown open, they would hardly have been surprised to see the bar covered with golden goblets and bowls of wassail, surrounded by lordly revellers and half-nude women, with the stricken Belshazzar at the head of the feast.  Certainly Belshazzar, on his night of doom, could hardly have presented a more pitiful front than Robert Belcher, as all eyes were turned upon him.  His face was haggard, his chin had dropped upon his breast, and he reclined in his chair like one on whom the plague had laid its withering hand.

There stood Prof.  Timms in his triumph.  His experiment had proved to be a brilliant success, and that was all he cared for.

“You have not shown us the other signatures,” said Mr. Balfour.

“False in one thing, false in all,” responded the professor, shrugging his shoulders.  “I can show you the others; they would be like this; you would throw away your time.”

Mr. Cavendish did not look at the witness, but pretended to write.

“Does the counsel for the defense wish to question the witness?” inquired Mr. Balfour, turning to him.

“No,” very sharply.

“You can step down,” said Mr. Balfour.  As the witness passed him, he quietly grasped his hand and thanked him.  A poorly suppressed cheer ran around the court-room as he resumed his seat.  Jim Fenton, who had never before witnessed an experiment like that which, in the professor’s hands, had been so successful, was anxious to make some personal demonstration of his admiration.  Restrained from this by his surroundings, he leaned over and whispered:  “Perfessor, you’ve did a big thing, but it’s the fust time I ever knowed any good to come from peekin’ through a key-hole.”

“Thank you,” and the professor nodded sidewise, evidently desirous of shutting Jim off, but the latter wanted further conversation.

“Was it you that said it was mean to tickle yer parson?” inquired Jim.

“What?” said the astonished professor, looking round in spite of himself.

“Didn’t you say it was mean to tickle yer parson?  It sounded more like a furriner,” said Jim.

When the professor realized the meaning that had been attached by Jim to the “original Hebrew,” he was taken with what seemed to be a nasal hemorrhage that called for his immediate retirement from the court-room.

What was to be done next?  All eyes were turned upon the counsel who were in earnest conversation.  Too evidently the defense had broken down utterly.  Mr. Cavendish was angry, and Mr. Belcher sat beside him like a man who expected every moment to be smitten in the face, and who would not be able to resent the blow.