ster and was trying to get away before he made trouble with them. That
was all they asked me. Then the doctor whirls on me and says:

"Are YOU English, too?"

I says yes; and him and some others laughed, and said, "Stuff!"

Well, then they sailed in on the general investigation, and there we had
it, up and down, hour in, hour out, and nobody never said a word about
supper, nor ever seemed to think about it--and so they kept it up, and
kept it up; and it WAS the worst mixed-up thing you ever see. They made
the king tell his yarn, and they made the old gentleman tell his'n; and
anybody but a lot of prejudiced 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 awhile, 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 l