(For the benefit of the layman it should be explained that as a rule indictments for forgery also contain a count for "uttering.") He then took the stand, admitted that he had not only uttered but had also written the check, and swore that it was his handwriting which, appeared on the pad.
The prosecutor was nonplussed.

If he should ask the witness to prove his capacity to forge such a check from memory on the witness-stand, the latter, as he had ample time to practise the signature while in prison, would probably succeed in doing so.

If, on the other hand, he should not ask him to write the name, the defendant's counsel would argue to the jury that he was afraid to do so.

The district attorney therefore took the bull by the horns and challenged Parker to make from memory a copy of the signature, and, much as he had suspected, the witness produced a very good one.

An acquittal seemed certain, and the prosecutor was at his wit's end to devise a means to meet this practical demonstration that the husband was in fact the forger.