Page:The Art of Cross-Examination.djvu/182

 said rapidly, 'Don't blot it, please.' It seemed to me that the sharp ring in Russell's voice startled Pigott. While writing he had looked composed; now again he looked flurried, and nervously handed back the sheet. The attorney general looked keenly at it, and then said, with the air of a man who had himself scored, 'My Lords, I suggest that had better be photographed, if your Lordships see no objection.'

"Russell (turning sharply toward the attorney general, and with an angry glance and an Ulster accent, which sometimes broke out when he felt irritated). 'Do not interrupt my cross-examination with that request.'

"Little did the attorney general at that moment know that, in the ten minutes or quarter of an hour which it had taken to ask these questions, Russell had gained a decisive advantage. Pigott had in one of his letters to Pat Egan spelt 'hesitancy' thus, 'hesitency.' In one of the incriminatory letters 'hesitancy' was so spelt; and in the sheet now handed back to Russell, Pigott had written 'hesitency,' too. In fact it was Pigott's spelling of this word that had put the Irish members on his scent. Pat Egan, seeing the word spelt with an 'e' in one of the incriminatory letters, had written to Parnell, saying in effect, 'Pigott is the forger. In the letter ascribed to you "hesitancy" is spelt "hesitency." That is the way Pigott always spells the word.' These things were not dreamt of in the philosophy of the attorney general when he interrupted Russell's cross-examination