“Couldn’t do it, Mr. Vance. Them letters I mean to hand down to my children.”
“Well, it’s of no consequence. I’ll go into the next store for the rest of my goods.”
“Don’t think of it. Here! take the letters. Only return ’em.” Vance not only secured the letters, but got Mr. Slink to go with him to the hospital to identify Quattles.
Then, on his way, enlisting three friends who were good Union men, one of them being a justice of the peace, Vance led them where the wounded man lay. Slink, who was known to the parties, identified the patient as the Mr. Quattles of the Pontiac; and the identification was duly recorded and sworn to. Vance then read his notes aloud to Quattles, whose competency to listen and understand was formally attested by the surgeon. The justice administered the oath. Quattles put his name to the document, and the signature was duly witnessed by all present.
No sooner was the act completed than the patient sank into unconsciousness. “He’ll not rally again,” said the surgeon. A quick, heavy breathing, gradually growing faint and fainter,—and lo! there was a smile on the face, but the spirit that had left it there had fled!
Vance first went to the apothecary whose name was on the pill-box. “Did Mr. Gargle keep the books in which he pasted his prescriptions?”
“Yes, he had them for twenty years back.”
“Would he look in the volume for 18—, for a certain number?”
“Willingly.”
In two minutes the number was found, and the day of the prescription fixed. Vance then proceeded to the office of L’Abeille, turned to the newspaper of that day, and there, in the advertising columns, found a sale advertised by P. Ripper & Co., auctioneers. It was a sale of a “lot” of negroes; and as a sort of postscript to the specifications was the following:—