He never smiled, he never frowned, he
never changed his voice from the gentle-flowing key to which he tuned
the initial sentence, he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of
enthusiasm; but all through the interminable narrative there ran a vein
of impressive earnestness and sincerity, which showed me plainly that,
so far from his imagining that there was anything ridiculous or funny
about his story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and
admired its two heroes as men of transcendent genius in _finesse_. To
me, the spectacle of a man drifting serenely along through such a queer
yarn without ever smiling, was exquisitely absurd. As I said before, I
asked him to tell me what he knew of Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and he
replied as follows. I let him go on in his own way, and never
interrupted him once:
There was a feller here once by the name of _Jim_ Smiley in the winter
of '49--or maybe it was the spring of '50--I don't recollect exactly,
somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because I
remember the big flume wasn't finished when he first came to the camp;
but, anyway, he was the curiosest man about, always betting on anything
that turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the
other side; and if he couldn't, he'd change sides.
Pages:
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256