EPISODE McCORNISSIAN!
“The story,” began the Sheriff quietly, speaking in the direction of all—and for the benefit of all, “as tolt me by McCo’niss abs’lutely confidential, was ’bout how, three y’ars back from when he tolt it—which makes it five y’ars back from now!—he come to the conclusion that he didn’t like his face—we-all, in Shelby’s Bluff, had always thunk that what subs’quently happened to that face ’uz due to a taxicab accident—but all right—well, he tolt me he really come to the conclusion one day that he didn’t like his face; and so, havin’ read of a clever surgeon what had done some jaw work on a rich man in New York, he went thar to New York, and looked this rich man up. I admit that he didn’t bother to tell me no names—nor even places, on’y statin’ how the rich man in question lived uptown, and had a butler big’s a gorilla. All—right! Well, as Philaster’s story went, he went up and seed this man, and found, fur the fu’st time in his life, whilst talkin’ ’bout his travels, that he’d completely furgot a suttin’ period in ’em layin’ atween whar he ’uz on a bot crossin’ the seas straight westward from Aus-traly, and whar he ’uz on ’nother boat travelin’ up the east coast of Afriky to Egypt. Amnesy, no less, it seems! And them that knows their g’ography ’round hyar kin write their own tickets as to what part o’ the world musta got e-rased from his conscyousness, and them that don’t know it, kin let matters go by default. Fur I wish to get on—with what all that’s connected with—an’ to. All-right! Well, the fact o’ havin’ virch’ly lost part o’ his life, Phi-laster said—and the part, cons’quently, now even knowed to him!—so shocked him that he drunk wine—fur the fu’st time in his life. And, so he said, got so danged drunk on what he drunk that he didn’t know whether he was comin’ or goin’. An’ made a plumb A. No. 1 fool of himse’f, ’cludin’, as th’ last thing he ’membered, wantin’ to deed ever’thing he had in the world to the man he ’uz with. And had a hangover yet, he said, when he cotched this surgeon next day—jest as the latter wuz ’bout to go to Europe. And ’count the smell on his—Phi-laster’s—breath, he dang near lost the op’rations he wanted. But which he p’suaded the surgeon to give him—an’ got—in the surgeon’s own home. A operation consisting o’ the cutting off of a hump of bone in his nose—the whittling down of a p’inted chin—and, fur good measure, th’ raising of his fo’head hairline ’way up by electrolysis. And, so he said, his next two days, layin’ in the surgeon’s home, was terrible—with three op’rations plus that hangover which, he said, lasted th’ full time. And th’ rest of his story wuz ’bout how he come home in bandages, tellin’ us in the Bluff that he’d had a taxicab accident in New York, and some hospital whittlin’! And wonderin’, he said, ef we’d b’lieve the story when the bandages would come off, and we found he was pra’tically a diff’ent-lookin’ man. Which, o’ co’se, most of us, I guess, did. Though one thing wuz sartin—he wuz a diff’ent man!—’caze he’d had a lesson in likker drinkin’ which, so he tolt me, he was destined never to furgit.
“And that,” finished the Sheriff firmly, “is the whole story—’zackly as give me by Phi-laster one day when I tried to press on him a 17-year-old bottle o’ Hill-and-Hill bottled-in-bond bourbon what I’d won in a raffle, and, at the same time, axed him plumb outright ef he’d ever got damages from the taxicab comp’ny fur the accydent. And he up and tolt me that story which, b’God, answered both my gesture—and my question! And which story, I’d say—”
The Sheriff paused dignifiedly.
“In fact,” he said coldly and meaningfully, “ef thar’s any man hyar who says that that story I’ve jest related don’t confirm the story Mex has jest tolt—let him speak!”
No man spoke. For it was quite obvious that what the Sheriff had just related did confirm the story just heard.
And the Sheriff turned his eyes balefully toward the man in the lineman habiliments.
“So git that, you ‘Blake.’ In case you think this co’te is bein’ partial. I and I on’y—along this hyar river—knowed about that hidden chapter in Phi-laster McCo’niss’ life whar he went to New York to git his face altered, on’y to find, in that rich man’s liberry thar, that he had a touch of amnesy ’bout some of his travels in the Antypodys, and thus got shocked into guzzlin’ wine what not on’y made him make a fool of himse’f but what durned near sidetracked the very op’ration. And so Mex’s story—”
“Now wait, Sheriff,” put in the man in the silken neckerchief. “I’ve remained dignifiedly silent here for quite a while—to give you the chance to say whatever it was you wanted to say. And the point of which seems to be that you had to have a single point—or two—or three—to confirm Mex’s story. Whereas, for me, it was confirmed by the very fact that it was credible from A to Izzard—hung together—could never have been invented by even Hart, the alleged master-inventor of tales himself. So—”
“What’s this? A master poker-play? I’ve seed sev’ral sech today.”
“Poker-play? Meaning I’m Hart, of course? No, no poker-play. Just a dissertation on logic. For Mex’s story rings true to me and is therefore confirmed for me; and not confirmed by a single point, or two, as it is for you, since no story can be confirmed by a couple of points in it any more than—”
“Cain’t it?” said the Sheriff. “Well, jest what kind of logic does a jedge—like myse’f—use, when it’s knowed that a famous crook is on an island whar he hisse’f is—and three men has told convincing stories to prove their identytity, while the fo’th, who’s given alleeged proof that he’s a man named Blake, flying from jestice in Indi—”
“Wait! Who gave, you mean, valid 100 per cent proof that he was. Even though he couldn’t prove he was innocent of the embezzlement charges.”
“Proof?” mused the Sheriff. “Well, mebbe, Hart, you can talk yo’rese’f out’n this” He reached into his open coat, and after first drawing slightly further outward and upward the handle of the big police gun that reposed there as, no doubt, a gentle gesture to his hearer, he withdrew from the pocket of his checkered hickory shirt the folded clipping which was held therein—which same clipping, it could have been noted by all awhile previous, he had examined carefully, both sides, during the very while that story was being told, tucking it then loosely back in that pocket. And which clipping he now passed, rather significantly, not to his hearer—but to the man whose story had just proclaimed he was an embryonic newspaperman. “The run-over o’ that there Blake story,” the Sheriff went on coolly, “as Mex thar can confirm—and Hick too, ef’n he desires to!—happens to lay on the back o’ that clipping—including its heading—proving it is the Blake story; and it says, amongst var’ous facts of Blake’s embezzlement, that Gilbert Blake has a glass eye.” He paused. “Now yo’re eyes, friend, have b’en moving moughty nice together today—up and down—to and fro—back an’ fo’th—and occas’nly to’ds each other! So—pluck out yo’re glass eye, Mis-ter Blake—and prove yo’rese’f?”