chuckleheads would a seen that the old gentleman was spinning truth and t'other one lies. And by-and-by they had me up to tell what I knowed. The king he give me a left-handed look out of the corner of his eye, and so I knowed enough to talk on the right side. I begun to tell about Sheffield, and how we lived there, and all about the English Wilkses, and so on; but I didn't get pretty fur till the doctor begun to laugh; and Levi Bell, the lawyer, says:
"Set down, my boy, I wouldn't strain myself, if I was you. I reckon you ain't used to lying, it don't seem to come handy; what you want is practice. You do it pretty awkward."
I didn't care nothing for the compliment, but I was glad to be let off, anyway.
The doctor he started to say something, and turns and says:
"If you'd been in town at first, Levi Bell——"
The king broke in and reached out his hand, and says:
"Why, is this my poor dead brother's old friend that he's wrote so often about?"
The lawyer and him shook hands, and the lawyer smiled and looked pleased, and they talked right along a while, and then got to one side and talked low; and at last the lawyer speaks up and says:
"That'll fix it. I'll take the order and send it, along with your brother's, and then they'll know it's all right."
So they got some paper and a pen, and the king he set down and twisted his head to one side, and chawed his tongue, and scrawled off something; and then they give the pen to the duke—and then for the first time, the duke looked sick. But he took the pen and wrote. So then the lawyer turns to the new old gentleman and says:
"You and your brother please write a line or two and sign your names."
The old gentleman wrote, but nobody couldn't read it. The lawyer looked powerful astonished, and says:
"Well, it beats me"—and snaked a lot of old letters out of his pocket, and examined them, and then examined the old man's writing, and then them again; and then says: "These old letters is from Harvey Wilks; and here's these two's handwritings, and anybody can see they didn't write them" (the king and the
