The principal witness, Mr. Crittenden Yollop, did his best to behave nobly. He thrice postponed a business trip to Paris in order to be within reach when Cassius needed him. Then, in the fall, when things looked most propitious for a speedy termination of Smilk's suspense, the millinery business took a sudden and alarming turn for the worse and Mr. Yollop fell into the hands of the specialists. He had his teeth ex-rayed, his sinuses probed, his eyes examined, his stomach sounded, his intestines visited, his nerves tampered with, his blood tested, his kidneys explored, his heart observed, his ears inspected, his gall stones (if he had any) shifted, his last will and testament drawn up, his funeral practically arranged for,--all by different scientists,--and then was ordered to go off somewhere in the country and play golf for his health. He went to Hot Springs, Virginia, and inside of two weeks contracted the golf disease in its most virulent form. He got it so bad that other players looked upon him as a scourge and avoided him even to the point of self-sacrifice. It was said of him that when he once got on a green it was next to impossible to get him off of it. But all this is neither here nor there. Suffice to say that shortly after his return to New York, Mr. Yollop paid a more or less clandestine visit to the Tombs, where he saw Cassius. This was the week before the trial was to open. He found the crook in a disconsolate frame of mind. "Don't call me Yollop," he managed to convey to the prisoner. "I gave another name to the jailer or whatever he is. Is it jail bird? It wouldn't look right for the prosecuting witness to come down here to see you. They think I'm your brother-in-law." Smilk glowered. "Has your hearin' improved any?" he inquired, after locating the disc. "No, of course not." "Then," said the prisoner, "I can't tell you what I think of you without the whole damn' jail hearin' me, so I guess you'd better beat it." "Splendid! That's just the way I might have expected you to talk to your brother-in-law." "Well, what do you want anyhow?" "I don't think that's a very nice way to speak to a--" "Come on, what do you want to see me about? Get it over with and get out. It can't help my case any if it gets noised around that you come down here to pay a friendly visit to me. I'm havin' a hard enough time as it is. It's gettin' so it's almost impossible to get back into the pen even--" "See here, Cassius, I've been giving your case a great deal--of serious thought. I want to help you out of this scrape if there is any way to do it." "That's just what I thought you'd be up to," groaned Cassius. "What's got into you? Have you soured on life, or what is it?" "Not a bit of it. You do not get my meaning. Your wife came to see me yesterday afternoon." "My wife? Which one?" "A tallish one with a flat nose." "Yes, I know her. What'd she want?" "She asked me to be as easy on you as I could, on account of the children."