“You mean, Stephen,” said Dunscomb, who had regained all his sang froid, “that Mary Monson has a bad-looking ankle, I suppose, wherein I think you miserably mistaken. No matter; she will not have to travel under your lash very far. But, how is it with the reporters?—Do you see any more of your friend that asks so many questions?”
“They be an axing set, ’Squire, if anybody can be so called,” returned Stephen, grinning. “Would you think it, sir?—one day when I was a comin’ in from Timbully empty, one on ’em axed me for a ride! a chap as hadn’t his foot in a reg’lar private coach since he was born, a wantin’ to drive about in a wehicle as well known as Doctor McBrain’s best carriage! Them’s the sort of chaps that spreads all the reports that’s going up and down the land, they tell me.”
“They do their share of it, Stephen; though there are enough to help them who do not openly belong to their corps. Well; what does your acquaintance want to know now?”
“Oncommon curious, ’Squire, about the bones. He axed me more than forty questions; what we thought of them; and about their being male or female bones; and how we know’d; and a great many more sich matters. I answered him accordin’ to my abilities; and so he made an article on the subject, and has sent me the papers.”
“An article! Concerning Mary Monson, and on your information?”
“Sartain, sir; and the bones. Vhy they cut articles out of much narrower cloth, I can tell you, ’Squire. There’s the cooks, and chambermaids, and vaiters about town, none of vich can hold up their heads with a reg’lar, long-established physician’s coachman, who goes far ahead of even an omnibus driver in public estimation, as you must know, ’Squire—but such sort of folks furnish many an article for the papers now-a-days—yes, and articles that ladies and gentlemen read.”
“That is certainly a singular source of useful knowledge—one must hope they are well-grounded, or they will soon cease to be ladies and gentlemen at all. Have you the paper about you, Stephen?”
Hoof handed the lawyer a journal folded with a paragraph in view that was so much thumbed and dirtied, it was not very easy to read it.
“We understand that the trial of Mary Monson, for the murder of Peter and Dorothy Goodwin,” said the ‘article,’ “will come off in the adjoining county of Dukes, at a very early day. Strong attempts have been made to make it appear that the skeletons found in the ruins of Goodwin’s dwelling, which our readers will remember was burned at the time of the murders, are not human bones; but, we have been at great pains to investigate this very material point, and have no hesitation in giving it as our profound conviction that it will be made to appear that these melancholy memorials are all that remain of the excellent couple who were so suddenly taken out of existence. We do not speak lightly on this subject, having gone to the fountain-head for our facts, as well as for our science.”
“Hoof on McBrain!” muttered Dunscomb, arching his brows—“this is much of a piece with quite one-half of the knowledge that is poured into the popular mind, now-a-days. Thank you, Stephen; I will keep this paper, which may be of use at the trial.”