gious man, and has therefore forgotten that he executed it. He is
aged forty-seven, stands five feet ten, is broad-shouldered,
full-favored, with muscular hands, thick, hard, and small; he is a
merchant and a bachelor, and finds it hard to give up when he has been
mistaken. I judge that the man who sits at the other end of the table
wrote his name to this note, and I think I can convince him of it, for
his honest face corresponds to the morality of the signature. The jury
will observe that the first letter of the name is written while the
quill pen was full of ink, which was almost exhausted on the second
letter and replenished on the third, and the operation is repeated
five times. I think, also, that the writer was in poor health, and his
muscles relaxed when he wrote his name. I am of the opinion,
therefore, that the signature was made while the writer was on his
back and the nib of the pen was higher than the tip.'

"At this point of the testimony the face of the defendant against
whose interest the witness was testifying became luminous, and he at
once rose and declared that the statement of the expert was the truth,
and that it had altogether passed from his mind till that moment.

"I hope now I shall have the pleasure of giving you such an
entertainment that you will remember it for your lifetime; and I know
whereof I affirm when I state that my friend here present will, one
hundred times in succession and without a mistake, from a single
specimen of the handwriting of an individual, give his age within two
years, his height within an inch, his weight within ten pounds, his
profession, whether married or single, his temperament and
peculiarities, his moral character, whether--"

Mr. Sidney was here observed to shake his head in a most determined
manner.

"Or if my friend," proceeded Mr. Burchard, "will give us the
characteristics of some of our neighbors who may be passing, this
company will be equally delighted and astonished, for I assert that
he will invariably hit off the peculiarity of a man from a single
glance better than any of us after ten years of intercourse and
acquaintance."

Again Mr. Sidney shook his head, and the subject was not again
referred to.

At a late hour the company separated, each asserting that he had never
passed a more enjoyable evening.

The reader will understand that only fragments of the conversation are
here given, and only such and so much as bear upon the question at t