“May it please the Court,” said Mr. Cavendish, “it is impossible, of course, for counsel to know what impression this testimony has made upon the Court and the jury.  Dr. Barhydt, after a lapse of years, and dealings with thousands of patients, comes here and testifies to an occurrence which my client’s testimony makes impossible; a sneak discovers a letter which may have been written on the third or the fifth of May, 1860—­it is very easy to make a mistake in the figure, and this stolen letter, never legitimately delivered,—­possibly never intended to be delivered under any circumstances—­is produced here in evidence; and, to crown all, we have had the spectacular drama in a single act by a man who has appealed to the imaginations of us all, and who, by his skill in the management of an experiment with which none of us are familiar, has found it easy to make a falsehood appear like the truth.  The counsel for the plaintiff has been pleased to consider the establishment or the breaking down of the assignment as the practical question at issue.  I cannot so regard it.  The question is, whether my client is to be deprived of the fruits of long years of enterprise, economy and industry; for it is to be remembered that, by the plaintiff’s own showing, the defendant was a rich man when he first knew him.  I deny the profits from the use of the plaintiff’s patented inventions, and call upon him to prove them.  I not only call upon him to prove them, but I defy him to prove them.  It will take something more than superannuated doctors, stolen letters and the performances of a mountebank to do this.”

This speech, delivered with a sort of frenzied bravado, had a wonderful effect upon Mr. Belcher.  He straightened in his chair, and assumed his old air of self-assurance.  He could sympathize in any game of “bluff,” and when it came down to a square fight for money his old self came back to him.  During the little speech of Mr. Cavendish, Mr. Balfour was writing, and when the former sat down, the latter rose, and, addressing the Court, said:  “I hold in my hand a written notice, calling upon the defendant’s counsel to produce in Court a little book in the possession of his client entitled ’Records of profits and investments of profits from manufactures under the Benedict patents,’ and I hereby serve it upon him.”

Thus saying, he handed the letter to Mr. Cavendish, who received and read it.

Mr. Cavendish consulted his client, and then rose and said:  “May it please the Court, there is no such book in existence.”

“I happen to know,” rejoined Mr. Balfour, “that there is such a book in existence, unless it has recently been destroyed.  This I stand ready to prove by the testimony of Helen Dillingham, the sister of the plaintiff.”

“The witness can be called,” said the judge.

Mrs. Dillingham looked paler than on the day before, as she voluntarily lifted her veil, and advanced to the stand.  She had dreaded the revelation of her own treachery toward the treacherous proprietor, but she had sat and heard him perjure himself, until her own act, which had been performed on behalf of justice, became one of which she could hardly be ashamed.