_Doctor_ (fairly beaming on counsel). "Well, Mr. ----, to tell you the truth, I have often heard of you, and I half suspected you would ask me some such foolish question; so this morning after my breakfast, and before starting for court, I took down from my library my copy of Ericson's book, and found that he agreed entirely with my diagnosis in this case." (Loud laughter at expense of counsel, in which the jury joined.)
_Counsel_ (reaching under the counsel table and taking up his own copy of "Ericson on the Spine," and walking deliberately up to the witness). "Won't you be good enough to point out to me where Ericson adopts your view of this case?"
_Doctor_ (embarrassed). "Oh, I can't do it now; it is a very thick book."
_Counsel_ (still holding out the book to the witness). "But you forget, doctor, that thinking I might ask you some such foolish question, you examined your volume of Ericson this very morning after breakfast and before coming to court."
_Doctor_ (becoming more embarrassed and still refusing to take the book). "I have not time to do it now."
_Counsel._ "_Time!_ why there is all the time in the world."
Counsel and witness eye each other closely.
_Counsel_ (sitting down, still eying witness). "I am sure the court will allow me to suspend my examination until you shall have had time to turn to the place you read this morning in that book, and can reread it now aloud to the jury."
The court room was in deathly silence for fully three minutes. The witness _wouldn't_ say anything, counsel for plaintiff _didn't dare_ to say anything, and counsel for the city _didn't want_ to say anything; he saw that he had caught the witness in a manifest falsehood, and that the doctor's whole testimony was discredited with the jury unless he could open to the paragraph referred to which counsel well knew did not exist in the whole work of Ericson.
At the expiration of a few minutes, Mr. Justice Barrett, who was presiding at the trial, turned quietly to the witness and asked him if he desired to answer the question, and upon his replying that he did not intend to answer it any further than he had already done, he was excused from the witness-stand amid almost breathless silence in the court room. As he passed from the witness chair to his seat, he stooped and whispered into the ear of counsel, "You are the ----est most impertinent man I have ever met."