An actress was testifying in New York in a suit for damages, and the cross-examiner plotted to discredit all her testimony by proving that she consistently lied about her age. She was fifty-two, but posed as forty. She did not wish to lie under oath.
"How old are you?" the cross-examiner asked.
"I don't know," she said promptly.
'What! You don't know?"
"No. I never had a birth certificate. I have never looked up the record of my birth."
"But Miss," the cross-examiner protested suavely, "surely your parents told you your age. When did they say you were born?"
"That," said the actress firmly, "is hearsay evidence, and I am sure you would not ask that it be admitted."