"One more anecdote and I will positively stop. Two neighbors had a law suit in Washoe City. One was an honest man, the other a scoundrel. As is the rule in Nevada, both the plaintiff and defendant testified. The defendant denied point blank the testimony of the plaintiff. It was plain that one or the other had committed terrible perjury. Some other witnesses were called, the case was closed and the jury retired to consider upon a verdict. But how to decide was the question. Which was the honest man and which the scoundrel? "At last one juror hit upon a happy thought. He said: "Gentlemen, did you notice closely the last witness for the defendant? His hair was white as snow, his body bent, his steps were feeble and tottering. That man has already one foot in the grave; he will not survive another month. Surely a man in his condition would tell the truth.' The argument seemed logical and the reasoning sound. The verdict was unanimous for the defendant. "No case ever showed clearer the 'infallibility' of a jury. The witness was Colonel Jensen. The defendant was the perjurer, and all the Colonel knew of the case was what the defendant had, that morning, out behind a hay corral, drilled him to know and to swear to, for a five-dollar piece. "The Colonel has gone now to join his ancestors on the other side. In the old orthodox days there would not have been the slightest doubt as to who his original ancestor was, or of the temperature of his present quarters, but who knows? "I only know that, while upon the earth, he was one of the few men whom I have known that I believed was a native genius; a very Shakespeare (or Bacon) in language; a Michael Angelo in coloring; a colossal, all-embracing, magnificent, measureless liar." "He was a good one, sure," said Carlin. "He was a bad one, sure," remarked Ashley. Then Brewster, taking up the theme, said: "He had a chronic disease, that was all. He was as much of an inebriate in his way as ever was drunkard a slave to alcohol. He had great vanity and self-esteem and a flowery imagination. These were chastened or disciplined by no moral attributes. He could no more help being what he was than can the raven avoid being black." "There was bad stock in the mon," said Corrigan. "He should have been strangled in his cradle; for sich a mon is forever making bitterness in a neighborhood, and is not fit to live." "Boys," asked the Colonel, "do you believe that lying is ever justifiable?" Brewster, Harding and Ashley simultaneously answered "No." "It depends," said Carlin. "Hardly iver," said Corrigan. Miller thought it might be necessary. "For one's self, no; for another, perhaps yes," said the Professor.