Page:The Art of Cross-Examination.djvu/223

 slightest appreciation of the nervous excitement attendant on being called upon to cross-examine the chief witness in a case involving the life or liberty of a human being. If Minnock withstood the cross-examination, the nurse Davis, apparently a most worthy and refined young man who had just graduated from the Mills Training School for Nurses, and about to be married to a most estimable young lady, would have to spend at least the next twenty years of his life at hard labor in state prison.

The first fifteen minutes of the cross-examination were devoted to showing that the witness was a thoroughly educated man, twenty-five years of age, a graduate of Saint John's College, Fordham, New York, the Sacred Heart Academy, the Francis Xavier, the De Lasalle Institution, and had travelled extensively in Europe and America. The cross-examination then proceeded:—

Counsel (amiably). "Mr. Minnock, I believe you have written the story of your life and published it in the BridgeportSunday Herald as recently as last December? I hold the original article in my hand."

Witness. "It was not the story of my life."

Counsel. "The article is signed by you and purports to be a history of your life."

Witness. "It is an imaginary story dealing with hypnotism. Fiction partly, but it dealt with facts."

Counsel. "That is, you mean to say you mixed fiction and fact in the history of your life?"

Witness. "Yes, sir."