came between poor Timms' sharpened case knife and my life. We
are out of sight of the prison now. It would have all been up with
Timms if that attack upon me had been discovered. Your pluck will have
saved Timms, if he's saved, as well as your Governor. Here, turn
towards me and let me see that arm." And as he spoke, my Gouverneur
Faulkner put his arm across my shoulder and turned me towards him so
that he could put his right hand on the sleeve of that cheviot bag in
which was a long slash from the knife and which was now wet with my
blood.

"I very much fear my beloved brown cheviot, which I have worn only a
few times, is now dead; and how will I find another for my need!" I
exclaimed with a great alarm when I saw that that knife had thus
devastated my good clothing of which I had not many and for the
procuring of which I was many thousand miles from my good friend and
tailor in New York. If I sought another suit in the city of Hayesville
might there not be dangers of discoveries in the adjustment thereof?
"Is it not a vexation?" I asked as the Gouverneur Faulkner attempted
to push back that murdered sleeve from my forearm.

"In the language of my friend Buzz, you are one sport, Robert. Shell
out of that coat immediately. I want to see just how much of a scratch
that is and I can't get the sleeve up high enough," commanded my
Gouverneur Faulkner. The tone of his voice was the same he had used to
me in commanding that I take his mail to his nice lady stenographer,
but his face was very white and his hand that he laid upon the collar
of my coat for assisting me to lay it aside trembled with a great
degree of violence.

"Indeed, my Gouverneur Faulkner, it is but a scratch and--"

"Get out of that coat!"

"But--"

"Off with that coat, Robert!" he commanded me, and before I could make
resistance, my coat was almost completely off of me by his aid and I
was obliged to let it slip into his hands. He laid it on the back of
the seat behind him, and with hands that were as gentle as those of
old Nannette when dealing with one of my injuries of a great number in
childhood, he rolled up the sleeve of my nice white shirt with the
brown strip of coloring in accord with that beloved and regretted
cheviot, and bared my forearm, which was very strong and white but
which also appeared to me to be dangerously rounded for his gaze. I
was glad that that arm was covered with a nice gore which had come
from the long slit but which ha