To-morry he's goin' to confer on me
his book; which I means to read it, an' then I'll savey more about
his little play.
"But," continued my friend, warm with his new philosophy, "this yere
is all preelim'nary, an' brings me back to what I remarks at the
jump; that what that old gent urges recalls this dumb an' deef man
incident; which it sort o' backs his play. It's a time when a passel
of us gets overcome by waves of sentiment that a-way, an' not only
turns a hoss-thief loose entire, after the felon's done been run
down, but Boggs waxes that sloppy he lavishes a hoss an' saddle onto
him; likewise sympathy, an' wishes him luck.
"The whole racket's that onnacheral I never does quit wonderin'
about it; but now this old science sharp expounds his theory of
'moral epidemics,' it gets cl'ared up in my mind, an' I reckons, as
he says, it's shorely one of them waves.
"Tell the story? Thar's nothin' much to said yarn, only the
onpreecedented leeniency wherewith we winds it up. In the first
place, I don't know what this hoss-thief's name is, for he's plum
deef an' dumb, an' ain't sayin' a word. I sees him hoverin' 'round,
but I don't say nothin' to him. I observes him once or twice write
things to folks he has to talk with on a piece of paper, but it's
too slow a racket for me, too much like conversin' by freight that
a-way, an' I declines to stand in on it.
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