I pardoned him, as desired, and told him it was.
“First name John?”
There was no denying it, and I replied in the affirmative.
“Delighted to meet you!” he exclaimed, as we shook hands cordially. “When did you leave Nashville?”
“I never left it,” was my response. “I was never there.”
“No? Then excuse me: you cannot be the gentleman I supposed you, although your appearance and name strikingly correspond with those of a person I knew in Nashville a year ago—especially the name. He had also lost a leg, as you have.”
“A remarkable coincidence,” said I. “In the course of my own travels, I have met with a great many of me—in name.”
My fellow-traveler was an agreeable and good-humored gentleman, and I related to him the following anecdote of Doctor B. Frank Palmer, of Philadelphia, the great manufacturer of artificial limbs. Receiving an order for a leg from plain John Smith one day, and being in a merry mood, the Doctor sat down and answered John’s letter thus:
“Look here! What do you mean? I have already furnished you with five hundred of my patent limbs, and I don’t think the Government allows you any more. However, I’ll send this one yet, and if you continue so extravagant in the use of patent legs, I advise you to set up a manufactory for your own accommodation.” * * *
The Doctor, who has manufactured thousands of artificial limbs for mutilated soldiers, once jocosely remarked to the writer that he found, by referring to his books, that John Smith had been literally hacked to pieces during the war. He had had his right hand cut off; his left hand; his right arm below the elbow; his left arm below the elbow; his right arm above the elbow; his left arm above the elbow; his right arm at shoulder-joint, with skin-flap; his left arm at shoulder-joint, with skin-flap; his right toes; his left toes; his right foot; his left foot; his right leg below the knee; his left leg below the knee; his right leg above the knee; his left leg above the knee; both hands, both arms below the elbow; both arms above the elbow; both feet; both legs below the knee; both legs above the knee; the right arm and left leg; the right arm and right leg; the right arm and both legs; the left arm and right leg; the left arm and left leg; the left arm and both legs; both arms and both legs; et cetera. All that can remain of him now, it might well be inferred, is about the size and shape of a sack of wheat, though far less useful to himself and the world.