“Well, last night we was a lot of us a-settin’ in the hotel tellin’ stories. It come my turn an’ I told about the dead soldier’s letter. A big felly in a unyform hed ben leanin’ agin the bar watchin’ us. ’Hen I begin he pricked up his ears a leetle. Ez I got furder an’ furder he seemed to git more an’ more interested, I noticed. By an’ by I seen he was becomin’ red an’ oneasy, an’ final ’hen I’d finished he walks acrosst the room to where we was settin’ an’ stands there starin’ at me, never sayin’ nawthin’.
“A minute passed. I sais, sais I, ‘Well, comrade, what air you starin’ so fer?’
“Sais he, ‘That letter was fer Mary Parker?’
“‘True,’ sais I, surprised.
“‘Dead sure?’ sais he.
“‘Sure,’ sais I.
“Then he shakes his fist an’ yells, ‘I’ve ’tended most every reunion here sence the war hopin’ to meet the idjet that sent that letter to my wife an’ wrote that foolishness ’bout findin’ my dead body. After twenty-five years I’ve foun’ you!’
“He pulls off his coat. The boys all jumps up.
“I, half skeert to death, cries, ‘But you ain’t the dead man!’