“Mf! It’s a very tough question, ain’t it! Yes , sir, I k’n tell you what’s tattooed on his breast. It’s jest a small, thin, blue arrow—that’s what it is; and if you don’t look clost, you can’t see it. now what do you say—hey?”
Well, I never see anything like that old blister for clean out-and-out cheek.
The new old gentleman turns brisk towards Ab Turner and his pard, and his eye lights up like he judged he’d got the king this time, and says:
“There—you’ve heard what he said! Was there any such mark on Peter Wilks’ breast?”
Both of them spoke up and says:
“We didn’t see no such mark.”
“Good!” says the old gentleman. “Now, what you did see on his breast was a small dim P, and a B (which is an initial he dropped when he was young), and a W, with dashes between them, so: P—B—W”—and he marked them that way on a piece of paper. “Come, ain’t that what you saw?”
Both of them spoke up again, and says:
“No, we didn’t . We never seen any marks at all.”
Well, everybody was in a state of mind now, and they sings out:
“The whole bilin ’ of ’m ’s frauds! Le’s duck ’em! le’s drown ’em! le’s ride ’em on a rail!” and everybody was whooping at once, and there was a rattling powwow. But the lawyer he jumps on the table and yells, and says:
“Gentlemen—gentle men ! Hear me just a word—just a single word—if you please ! There’s one way yet—let’s go and dig up the corpse and