_Counsel_: "Well--er--for being associated abroad with--er--a certain type of hotel synonymous with a disorderly house--" _Vivie_: "Indeed? Have you tried them? My mother has managed the hotels of an English Company abroad till she retired altogether from the management some years ago. It was a Company in which Sir George Crofts--" _Judge_, interposing: "We need not go into that--I think the Counsel for the prosecution is not entitled to ask such questions." _Counsel_: "I submit, Me Lud, that it is germane to my case that the prisoner's upbringing might have--" _Vivie_: "I am quite willing to give you all the information I possess as to my upbringing. My mother who has resided mainly at Brussels for many years preferred that I should be educated in England. I was placed at well-known boarding schools till I was old enough to enter Newnham. I passed as a Third Wrangler at Cambridge and then joined the firm of Fraser and Warren. As you seem so interested in my relations, I might inform you that I have not many. My mother's sister, Mrs. Burstall, the widow of Canon Burstall, resides at Winchester; my grandfather, Lieutenant Warren, was killed in the Crimea--or more likely died of neglected wounds owing to the shamefully misconducted, man-conducted Army Medical Service of those days. My mother in early days was better known as Miss Kate Vavasour. She was the intimate friend of a celebrated barrister who--" _Judge_, intervening: "We have had enough of this discursive evidence which really does not bear on the case at all. I must ask the prosecuting counsel to keep to the point and not waste the time of the court." _Prosecuting Counsel_ (who has meantime received three or four energetic notes from his leader, begging him to remember his instructions and not to be an ass): "Very good M'Lud." (To Vivie) "Do you know Mr. David Vavasour Williams, a barrister?" _Vivie_: "I have heard of him." _Counsel_: "Have you spoken of him as your cousin?" _Vivie_: "I may have done. He is closely related to me." _Counsel_: "I put it to you that _you_ are David Williams, or at any rate that you have posed as being that person." _Judge_, interposing with a weary air: "_Who_ is David Williams?" _Counsel_: "Well--er--a member of the Bar--well known in the criminal courts--Shillito case--" _Judge_: "Really? I had not heard of him. Proceed." _Counsel_ (to Vivie): "You heard my questions?" _Vivie_: "I have never posed as being other than what I am, a woman much interested in claiming the Parliamentary Franchise for Women; and I do not see what these questions have to do with my indictment, which is a charge of arson. You introduce all manner of irrelevant matter--" _Counsel_: "You decline to answer my questions?" (Vivie turns her head away.) _Judge_, to Counsel: "I do not quite see the bearing of your enquiries."