At daybreak
the negroes found me on the floor, unconscious. Then you came,
Pendleton. The negroes had washed up the litter from the hearth
where the indigo about the coins in the boxes had been shaken
out."
My father interrupted:
"The negroes said the floor had been scrubbed when they found
you."
"They were drunk," continued the hunchback with no concern.
"And, does one hold a drunken negro to his fact? But you saw for
yourself the wooden boxes, round, three inches high, with tin
lids, and of a diameter to hold a stack of golden eagles, and you
saw the indigo still sticking about the sides of these boxes
where the coins had lain."
"I did," replied my father. "I observed it carefully, for I
thought the gold pieces might turn up sometime, and the blue
indigo stain might be on them when they first appeared."
Dillworth leaned far back in his chair, his legs tangled under
him, his eyes on my father, in reflection. Finally he spoke.
"You are far-sighted," he said.
"Or God is," replied my father, and, stepping over to the table,
he spun a gold piece on the polished surface of the mahogany
board.
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