Once there was a wise old man and a smart-aleck boy. The boy was driven

by a single desire-to expose the wise old man as a fool. The smart aleck had

a plan. He had captured a small and fragile bird in the forest. With the bird

cupped in his hands so that the old man could not see it, the boy’s scheme

was to approach the old man and ask, “Old man, what do I have in my

hand?” To which the wise old man would reply, “You have a bird, my son.”

Then the boy would ask, “Old man, is the bird alive or dead?” If the old

man replied that it was dead, the boy would open his hands and allow the

bird to fly off into the forest. But if the old man replied that the bird was

alive, the boy would crush the bird inside his cupped hands until it was dead.

Then the boy would open his hands and say, “See, the bird is dead!”

And so, the smart-aleck boy went to the old man, and he said, as planned,

“Old man, what do I have in my hands?”

The old man, as predicted, replied, “You have a bird, my son.”

“Old man,” the boy then said with disdain, “is the bird alive or is it

dead?”

Whereupon the old man looked at the boy with his kindly old eyes and

replied, “The bird is in your hands, my son.”

It is then that I turn to the jury and say, “And so, too, ladies and

gentlemen, the life of my client is in yours.”

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