About three weeks later another bill passed the House without opposition, General Belcher being absent in New York upon a Committee of Inquiry. While the measure was pending in the Senate, Achilles Smith, one morning, at an early hour, entered a rear door of the Museum with a key which he had obtained by bribing the charwoman, and proceeding to Case 1236, he removed the leg from the jar No. 11, and put it in another jar in another case, replacing it with the leg that had been in the latter jar.
He went down-stairs chuckling. “You mutilated outcast, you,” he said, addressing the Major in imagination; “we’ll see who’ll beat at this game!”
When the Act had been signed by the President, the Major drove with Pandora to the Museum a second time. Upon reaching Case 1236 he was for a moment stricken dumb with amazement. Presently he said,—
“Why, Pandora, my dear, do you see? It’s the leg of a colored man!”
“Ye—e—es, it seems to be, Henry. But perhaps mortification or something has set in.”
“It is very mysterious. I can’t account for it.”
“One of your legs was not colored, was it, my love?”
“Oh, no, of course not!”
“Perhaps the janitor here has tarred it over, to preserve it better?”
“No, ma’am; that’s not allowed in this institution.”