“How do you account for that?”
“I can’t account for it! If I weren’t a sound man, and a sober man, and a wide-awake one, I should think I was drunk, or dreaming, or deranged. It is quite beyond me, Mr. Force. This is my paper—I see it, and know it—and this is an obituary notice of a living man that I never put in there! I see and know that as well! But how to reconcile these two contradictory facts, I don’t know. How did you come by that paper, if you please?”
“It was sent to me by mail!”
“Well, well, well!”
“Have you a file of the Angleton Advertiser?”
“Of course I have, sir.”
“Let us look at it, then, and compare this paper with the paper of that same date on the file.”
“Why, that is a good idea. And I shall only have to look at the copy of August 20th in last year’s file. I’ll do it at once.”
The editor turned and took down a roller full of papers from the two wooden pins on the wall behind him, and laid it upon the counter and began to turn over the sheets.
“Here it is!” exclaimed Purdy, pulling out a paper and spreading it out on the counter. “August 20th—and appears to be a facsimile of the one you brought here, sir. Now let us lay them on the board side by side and compare them.”