ou got us
helpless there in your house; but----"

"Shut up!" Feldman roared again, forgetting his role of the polished
advocate; and Goldstein fairly beamed with satisfaction.

"Don't bully your own witness," he said. "Let me do it for you."

He turned to Kovner with a beetling frown.

"Now, Kovner," he commenced, "you claim you've got a verbal lease for a
year of this Linden Boulevard house, don't you?"

"I sure do," Kovner replied, "and I got witnesses to prove it."

"That's all right," Goldstein rejoined; "so long as there's Bibles
there'll always be witnesses to swear on 'em. The point is: How do you
claim the lease was made?"

"I don't claim nothing," Kovner replied. "I got a year's lease on that
property because, in the presence of my wife and his wife, Mr.
Goldstein, he says to me I must either take the house for a year from
last October to next October or I couldn't take it at all."

Feldman smiled loftily at his opponent.

"The art of cross-examination is a subtle one, Goldstein," he said, "and
if you don't understand it you're apt to prove the other fellow's case."

"Nevertheless," Goldstein continued, "I'm going to ask him one more
question, and that is this: When was this verbal agreement made--before
or after you moved into the house?"

"Before I moved in, certainly," Kovner answered. "I told you that he
says to me I couldn't move in unless I would agree to take the place for
a year."

"And when did you move in?" Goldstein continued.

"On the first of October," Kovner said.

"No, popper," Mrs. Kovner interrupted; "we didn't move in on the first.
We moved in the day before."

"That's right," Kovner said--"we moved in on the thirtieth of
September."

"So," Goldstein declared, "you made a verbal agreement before September
thirtieth for a lease of one year from October first?"

Kovner nodded and Goldstein turned to Henry D. Feldman, whose lofty
smile had completely disappeared.

"Well, Feldman," he said, "you pulled a couple of objections on me from
'way back in the last century, understand me; so I guess it won't hurt
if I remind you of a little statute passed in the reign of Charles the
Second, which says: 'All contracts which by their terms are not to be
performed within one year must be in writing and signed by the party to
be charged.' I mean the Statute of Frauds."

"I know what you mean all right," Feldman replied; "but you'll have to
prove that before a court and jury. Just now w