truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,
so help me God," sounds absolutely sincere and honest, but as it rings
out in the tone of the third solemnest bell in the chime, this is how it
is taken down in the unerring short-hand notes of the recording angel
and sent by special wireless to the typewriter for His Majesty of the
Sulphur Trust: "What I tell _shall_ be the truth and the whole truth,
and there _shall be_ no truth but that I tell, and God help the man or
woman who tells truth different from my truth." The recording angel
never missed catching Henry H. Rogers' court-oaths in this way, and
never missed sending them along to the typewriter at Sulphurville, with
this postscript: "Keep your wire open, for there'll be things doing
now!"

At the recent but now famous sensational Boston "Gas Trial," Henry H.
Rogers in the role of defendant was the principal witness. I was in
court five hours and a half each sitting as day after day he testified.
I watched, as the brightest lawyers in the land laid their traps for him
in direct and cross-examination, to detect a single sign of fiction
replacing truth, or going joint-account with her, or where truth parted
company with fiction; and I was compelled, when he stepped from the
witness-stand, to admit I had not found what I had watched for. This,
too, when I was equipped with actual knowledge and black-and-white
proofs of the facts. Weeks before the trial began Attorney Sherman L.
Whipple, one of the great cross-examiners of the time, had made his
boast that he would break through the "Standard Oil" magnate's
heretofore impenetrable bulwarks, and when H. H. Rogers entered the
court-room for the first time and let his eagle eye sweep the lawyers,
the laymen, and the judge until it finally rested on Whipple, the glance
was as absolute a challenge and a defiance as ever knights of old
exchanged.

I followed Mr. Rogers on the witness-stand and was compelled to give
testimony directly opposite to that which he had given, and at one time,
as I glanced at the row of lawyers who were in "Standard Oil's" hire, I
felt a cold perspiration start at every pore at the thought of what
would happen if I even in a slight detail got mixed in my facts. Then I
fully realized the magnificence of Mr. Rogers' acting, for not once in
all the hours I had sat and watched him had I detected a single evidence
of cold, hot, or lukewarm perspiration coming from his pores.

Yet away from the int