"You could tell him anything. You only need speak in a plain voice and never let anyone stop you from smiling in your own peculiar manner. I say this fully understumbling that in this moment I stand to you in loco Gideonis Hibborum."
"Oh, God damn it, Ru, whenever I'm dead in earnest you're laughing on a mountaintop—yes, and when I think something comical you're a little old man a thousand years old."
"Only a thousand? As best I can discover from perusal of ancient records, I was born during the government of Pericles of Athens, circa five hundred years before the birth of Christ. Plutarch doesn't specifically mention me—that's the slipshod scholarship of his times for you, obliging a man to read between the lines. It so happens I was not laughing when I urged you to tell that to Uncle John. And now, what was it about yesterday evening at the tavern that you didn't tell the Constable?"
"The—Constable——"
"Yes, Ben, and yes. One-eyed man. Lion Tavern. Some part of that untold was hurting thee. What was it? Note that I stand here in the road, my bare face hung decently in front of my brains, not laughing."
"Good God! Was I so——"
"No one in that room has my eyes and ears."
"I see.... Will you undertake not to speak of it to anyone?"
"Of course, if you charge me so."
"I do. It was simply a fleeting impression I had, that while I had turned to see Ball and Dyckman leaving the tavern, Shawn also had done—something or other. Looked back, I thought, where that one-eyed man was sitting, just before he rose and followed them out. Now understand, Ru: I was drank already. It was nothing more than a fancy."