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77 - Roughing It by Mark Twain · Roughing It

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  Speaker 1: Chapter seventy seven of Roughing It. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox dot org. Ruffing It
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  Speaker 1: by Mark Twain, Chapter seventy seven. I stumbled upon one
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  Speaker 1: curious character in the island of Manni. He became a
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  Speaker 1: sore annoyance to me in the course of time. My
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  Speaker 1: first glimpse of him was in a sort of public
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  Speaker 1: room in the town of Lehina. He occupied a chair
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  Speaker 1: at the opposite side of the apartment and sat eyeing
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  Speaker 1: our party with interest for some minutes, and listening as
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  Speaker 1: critically to what we were saying, as if he fancied
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  Speaker 1: we were talking to him and expecting him to reply.
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  Speaker 1: I thought it very sociable in a stranger. Presently, in
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  Speaker 1: the course of conversation, I made a statement bearing upon
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  Speaker 1: the subject under discussion, and I made it with due modesty,
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  Speaker 1: for there was nothing extraordinary about it, and it was
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  Speaker 1: only put forth an illustration of a point at issue.
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  Speaker 1: I had barely finished when this person spoke out with
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  Speaker 1: rapid utterance and feverish anxiety. Oh, that was certainly remarkable.
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  Speaker 1: After a fashion but you ought to have seen my chimney.
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  Speaker 1: You ought to have seen my chimney, sir, smoke. I
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  Speaker 1: wish I may hang. If mister Jones you remember that chimney,
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  Speaker 1: You must remember that chimney. No, no, I recollect. Now
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  Speaker 1: you aren't living on this side of the island, then,
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  Speaker 1: But I am telling you nothing but the truth. And
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  Speaker 1: I wish I may never draw another breath if that
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  Speaker 1: chimney didn't smoke, so that the smoke actually got caked
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  Speaker 1: in it, and I had to dig it out with
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  Speaker 1: a pickaxe. You may smile, gentlemen, but the high Sheriff's
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  Speaker 1: got a hunk of it which I'd dug out before
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  Speaker 1: his eyes, And so it's perfectly easy for you to
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  Speaker 1: go and examine for yourselves. The interruption broke up the conversation,
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  Speaker 1: which had already begun to lag, and we presently hired
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  Speaker 1: some natives and an outrigger canoe or two went out
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  Speaker 1: to overlook a grand surf bathing contest. Two weeks after this,
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  Speaker 1: while talking in a company, I looked up and detected
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  Speaker 1: this same man boring through and through me with his
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  Speaker 1: intense eye, and noted again his twitching muscles and his
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  Speaker 1: feverish anxiety to speak. The moment I paused, he said,
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  Speaker 1: beg your pardon, sir, Beg your pardon. But it can
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  Speaker 1: only be considered remarkable when brought into strong outline by isolation, sir.
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  Speaker 1: Contrasted with a circumstance which occurred in my own experience,
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  Speaker 1: it instantly becomes commonplace. No, not that, for I will
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  Speaker 1: not speak so discourteously of any experience in the career
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  Speaker 1: of a stranger and a gentleman. But I am obliged
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  Speaker 1: to say that you could not, and you would not
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  Speaker 1: ever again refer to this tree as a large one,
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  Speaker 1: if you could behold as I have, the great Yakmatak
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  Speaker 1: tree in the island Wuanaska. See you of Comchutka, a tree, sir,
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  Speaker 1: not one inch less than four hundred and fifteen feet
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  Speaker 1: in solid diameter. And I wish I may die in
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  Speaker 1: a minute. If it isn't so, Oh, you needn't look
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  Speaker 1: so questioning, gentlemen, here's old Captain salt Marsh can say
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  Speaker 1: whether I know what I am talking about or not.
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  Speaker 1: I showed him the tree, Captain salt Marsh, Come now,
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  Speaker 1: cat your anchor, lad. You're heaving too taut. You promised
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  Speaker 1: to show me that stunner, and I walked more than
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  Speaker 1: eleven mile with you through the cuscidous jungle. I ever
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  Speaker 1: see a hunting for it. But the tree you showed
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  Speaker 1: me finally weren't as big round as a beer cask.
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  Speaker 1: And you know that your own self, Marcus hear the
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  Speaker 1: man talk. Of course, the tree was reduced that way.
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  Speaker 1: But didn't I explain it answer me? Didn't I didn't
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  Speaker 1: I say I wished you could have seen it when
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  Speaker 1: I first saw it, when you got up on your
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  Speaker 1: ear and called me names and said I had brought
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  Speaker 1: you eleven miles to look at a sapling, Didn't I
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  Speaker 1: explain to you that all the whale ships in North
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  Speaker 1: Seas had been wooding off of it for more than
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  Speaker 1: twenty seven years, And didn't you suppose the tree could
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  Speaker 1: last forever? Confounded, I don't see why you want to
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  Speaker 1: keep back things that way and try to injure a
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  Speaker 1: person that's never done you any harm. Somehow, this man's
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  Speaker 1: presence made me uncomfortable, and I was glad when a
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  Speaker 1: native arrived at that moment to say that Micawaw the
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  Speaker 1: most companionable and luxurious among the rude war chiefs of
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  Speaker 1: the Islands desired us to come over and help him
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  Speaker 1: enjoy a missionary whom he had found trespassing on his grounds.
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  Speaker 1: I think it was about ten days afterward that, as
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  Speaker 1: I finished a statement I was making for the instruction
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  Speaker 1: of a group of friends and acquaintances, and which made
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  Speaker 1: no pretense of being extraordinary, a familiar voice chimed instantly
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  Speaker 1: in on the heels of my last word and said, but,
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  Speaker 1: my dear sir, there was nothing remarkable about that horse
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  Speaker 1: or the circumstance either, nothing in the world. I mean
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  Speaker 1: no sort of offense when I say it, sir, but
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  Speaker 1: you really do not know anything whatever about speed. Bless
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  Speaker 1: your heart, if you could only have seen my Mayor, Margaretta,
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  Speaker 1: there was a beast. There was lightning for you. Trot
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  Speaker 1: trot is no name for it. She flew how she
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  Speaker 1: could whirl a buggy along. I started her out, Sir,
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  Speaker 1: Colonel Bilgewater, you recollect that animal perfectly well. I started
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  Speaker 1: her out about thirty or thirty five yards ahead of
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  Speaker 1: the awfullest storm I ever saw in my life, and
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  Speaker 1: it chased us upwards of eighteen miles. It did by
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  Speaker 1: the everlasting hills, and I am telling you nothing but
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  Speaker 1: the unvarnished truth when I say that not one single
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  Speaker 1: drop of rain fell on me, not a single drop, sir,
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  Speaker 1: and I swear to it. But my dog was a
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  Speaker 1: swimming behind the wagon all the way. For a week
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  Speaker 1: or two, I stayed mostly within doors, for I seemed
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  Speaker 1: to meet this person everywhere, and he had become utterly
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  Speaker 1: hateful to me. But one evening I dropped in on
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  Speaker 1: Captain Perkins and his friends and we had a sociable time.
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  Speaker 1: About ten o'clock, I chanced to be talking about a
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  Speaker 1: merchant friend of mine, and without really intending it, the
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  Speaker 1: remark slipped out that he was a little mean and
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  Speaker 1: parsimonious about paying his workmen. Instantly, through the steam of
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  Speaker 1: a hot whiskey punch on the opposite side of the room,
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  Speaker 1: a remembered voice shot, and for a moment I trembled
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  Speaker 1: on the imminent verge of profanity. Oh my dear sir,
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  Speaker 1: Really you expose yourself when you parade that as a
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  Speaker 1: surprising circumstance. Bless your heart and hide. You are ignorant
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  Speaker 1: of the very a b C of meanness, ignorant as
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  Speaker 1: the unborn babe, ignorant as unborn twins. You don't know
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  Speaker 1: anything about it. It is pitiable to see you, sir,
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  Speaker 1: a well spoken and prepossessing stranger, making such an enormous powwow,
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  Speaker 1: hear about a subject concerning which your ignorance is perfectly humiliating.
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  Speaker 1: Look me in the eye, if you please, look me
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  Speaker 1: in the eye. John James Godfrey was the son of
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  Speaker 1: poor but honest parents in the state of Mississippi. Boyhood
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  Speaker 1: friend of mine bosom comrade in later years. Heaven rest
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  Speaker 1: his noble spirit. He has gone from us now. John
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  Speaker 1: James Godfrey was hired by the Hay Blossom Mining Company
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  Speaker 1: of California to do some blasting for them, corporated company
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  Speaker 1: of mean men. The boys used to call it well.
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  Speaker 1: One day he drilled a hole about four feet deep
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  Speaker 1: and put in an awful blast of powder, and was
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  Speaker 1: standing over it ramming it down with an iron crowbar
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  Speaker 1: about nine feet long, when the cusst things struck a
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  Speaker 1: spark and fired the powder and scat away. John Godfrey
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  Speaker 1: whizzed like a skyrocket, him and his crowbar. Well, sir,
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  Speaker 1: He kept on going up in the air, higher and higher,
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  Speaker 1: till he didn't look any bigger than a boy and
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  Speaker 1: he kept going on up higher and higher till he
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  Speaker 1: didn't look any bigger than a doll. And he kept
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  Speaker 1: on going up higher and higher till he didn't look
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  Speaker 1: any bigger than a little small bee. And then he
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  Speaker 1: went out of sight. Presently he came in sight again,
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  Speaker 1: looking like a little small bee. And he came along
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  Speaker 1: down further and further till he looked as big as
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  Speaker 1: a doll again, and down further and further till he
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  Speaker 1: was as big as a boy again, and further and
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  Speaker 1: further till he was a full sized man once more.
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  Speaker 1: And then him and his crowbar came a whizzing down
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  Speaker 1: and lit right exactly in the same old tree, and
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  Speaker 1: went to rammand down and ramming down and ramming down again,
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  Speaker 1: just the same as if nothing had happened. Now do
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  Speaker 1: you know that poor cuss warn't gone only sixteen minutes,
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  Speaker 1: and yet that incorporated company mean men docked him for
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  Speaker 1: the lost time. I said, I had the headache, and
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  Speaker 1: so excused myself and went home, and on my diary
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  Speaker 1: I entered another night spoiled by this offensive loafer, and
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  Speaker 1: a fervent curse was set down with it to keep
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  Speaker 1: the item company and the very next day I packed
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  Speaker 1: up out of all patients and left the island. Almost
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  Speaker 1: from the very beginning I regarded that man as a liar.
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  Speaker 1: The line of points represents an interval of years, at
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  Speaker 1: the end of which time the opinion hazarded in that
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  Speaker 1: last sentence came to be gratifyingly and remarkably endorsed and
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  Speaker 1: by wholly disinterested persons. The man Marcus, was found one
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  Speaker 1: morning hanging to a beam of his own bedroom, the
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  Speaker 1: doors and windows securely fastened on the inside, dead and
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  Speaker 1: on his breast was pinned paper in his own handwriting,
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  Speaker 1: begging his friends to suspect no innocent person of having
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  Speaker 1: anything to do with his death, for that it was
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  Speaker 1: the work of his own hands entirely. Yet the jury
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  Speaker 1: brought in the astounding verdict that deceased came to his
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  Speaker 1: death by the hands of some person or persons unknown.
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  Speaker 1: They explained that the perfectly undeviating consistency of Marcus's character
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  Speaker 1: for thirty years towered aloft as colossal an indestructible testimony,
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  Speaker 1: that whatever statement he chose to make was entitled to
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  Speaker 1: instant and unquestioning acceptance as a lie. And they furthermore
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  Speaker 1: stated their belief that he was not dead an instance
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  Speaker 1: the strong circumstantial evidence of his own word that he
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  Speaker 1: was dead, and beseeched the coroner to delay the funeral
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  Speaker 1: as long as possible, which was done, and so in
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  Speaker 1: the tropical climate of Lehina, the coffin stood open for
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  Speaker 1: seven days, and then even the loyal jury gave him up.
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  Speaker 1: But they sat on him again and changed their verdict
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  Speaker 1: to suicide induced by mental aberration, because they said, with
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  Speaker 1: penetration he said he was dead, and he was dead,
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  Speaker 1: and would he have told the truth if he had
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  Speaker 1: been in his right mind, No Sha end of chapter
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  Speaker 1: seventy seven.