"I have never," she replied, and touched with her tongue her dry lips, "told to any one the name of his father."
"Has he ever seen his father?"
"Never," she said; then for the first time she looked away from Elmen and not at any one else, but gazed into memory, and for the first time her lips quivered.
"Do you wish to change that answer?" asked Elmen.
"Never to my knowledge," she said. "When Fred got his band a few years ago and was doing so well, I wrote his father that Fred Ketlar was his son and where he could see his son if he wished to. I do not know whether his father ever went to see him; my son could not have known his father if he faced him."
"Did his father ever reply to you?" asked Elmen.
"Get up!" ejaculated Ellison to Calvin, and when Calvin did not immediately respond, Ellison was on his feet. "I object, your honor!" he cried to the judge, and the witness was silent.
The judge waited, before ruling, and gazed at the State's attorneys; Calvin arose and, with Ellison, advanced toward the judge, with Elmen stepping beside them.
"Your honor, this question is irrelevant and immaterial," Ellison protested vigorously and turned to his associate to reënforce him.
"The State," said Calvin, slowly, "has made no point of the circumstances of the defendant's birth, much less of the relations between his parents. This is simply a play for sympathy—"
"To which, your honor," interrupted Elmen, eloquently, "the defendant is surely entitled. The learned counsel for the State have made no point of these circumstances because they are well aware that these be in our favor. I bring them out to show how my client, by his own talent
