A round of applause greeted this story as it was ended, and cheerful hands were extended to the witness and the prisoner. Calvin Van de Lear, however, exclaimed: "Alderman, what has all this to do with the prisoner's ignominious flight for months from his home and from persons he abandoned to suspicion and shame? This man is an impostor." "Will you take the stand, Mr. Andrew Zane?" asked Duff Salter. "No," replied the late fugitive. "I have been hunted and slandered like a wolf. I will give no evidence in Kensington, where I have been so shamefully treated. Let me be sent to a higher court, and there I will speak." "Alas!" Duff Salter said, with grave emphasis, "it is you father's old and obstinate spirit which is speaking. You are the ghost I thought was his at the door of my chamber. Mr. Magistrate, swear me!" Duff Salter gravely kissed the Testament and stood ready to depose, when Calvin Van de Lear again interrupted. "Are you not deaf?" asked the divinity student. "Where are your tablets that you carry every day? You seem to hear too well, I consider." "You are right," cried Duff Salter, turning on his interrogator like a lion. "I am wholly cured of deafness, and my memory is as acute as my hearing." Calvin Van de Lear turned pale to the roots of his dry, yellow whiskers. "Devil!" he muttered. "My testimony covers only a single point," resumed the strong, direct, and imposing witness. "I saw the face of this prisoner for the first time since his babyhood in his father's house not many weeks ago. It resembled his father's youthful countenance, as I knew it, so greatly that I really believed his parent haunted the streets of Kensington, according to the rumor. The supposed apparition drove me to investigate the mysterious death of William Zane. I believed that Agnes knew the story, but was under this prisoner's command of secrecy. Seeking an assistant, the witness, Donovan, forced himself upon me. In a short time I was confounded by the contradictions of his behavior. Looking deeper into it, I suspected that in his suit of clothing resided at different times two men: the one an agent, the other a principal; the one a reality, the other a disguise. I armed myself and had the duller and less observant of these doubles row me out upon the Delaware on such a night as marked the tragedy he witnessed. When we reached the middle of the river I forced the story of the coincidence from him by reasoning and threats." "Ha! ha!" exclaimed Calvin Van de Lear. "Is this an Arkansas snake story?"