“Then he visited thee, friend,” I said, “in thy sleep, and placed his mark upon thee—the mark of the beast, come and look at it in the glass.”
When he saw himself, he started back in great terror, and gave vent to a long, low, guttural groan, like a man who is suffering intense agony. “What in the world is all this?” he said. He again approached the glass and again retreated with a look of unspeakable despair, groaning like a thousand sinners, and swelled out about the head and throat like a startled blauzer-snake. After which he put his hand to his lip and discovered there was no hair. He then took courage and advanced once more, and examined it carefully, and rubbed it, but it did not remove it.
“He has burned it into the skin,” I said, “he hath made thee the image of the horse-stealer, and who knoweth whom else thou resemblest. Thee art a marked man verily. Thee said thee never used disguises.”
“Never,” he said, “never, Mr Slick.”
“Hush,” I said, “thee hast worn three disguises. First, thee wore the disguise of religion; secondly, thee were disguised in liquor; and thirdly, thee art now disguised with what fighting men call the moustachio.”
“Oh, Mr Slick,” said he, leaving off his cant, and really looking like a different man, “dod drot it, it is a just punishment. I knock under, I holler, I give in, have mercy on me. Can you rid me of this horrid mark, for I can’t flunk out in the street in this rig.”
“I can,” sais I, “but I will do it on one condition only, and that is, that you give over canting that way, and coverin’ tricks with long faces and things too serious to mention now, for that is doubly wicked. Cheatin’ ain’t pretty at no time, though I wouldn’t be too hard on a man for only gettin’ hold of the right eend of the rope in a bargain. I have done it myself. Or puttin’ the leak into a consaited critter sometimes for fun. But to cheat, and cant to help you a doin’ of it, is horrid, that’s a fact. It’s the very devil. Will you promise, if I take down that ornamental sign-board, that you will give up that kind o’ business and set up a new shop?”
“I will,” said he, “upon my soul—I’ll be d—d if I don’t. That ain’t cant now, is it?”
“Well, now you never said a truer word,” said I, “you will be d—d if you don’t, that’s a fact. But there is no use to run to the other extreme, neither.”
“Are you a preacher?” said he, and I thought he gave me a sly look out of the corner of his eye, as much as to say, “how good we are, ain’t we,” as sin said when the devil was rebukin’ of him. The fact is, the fellow was a thunderin’ knave, but he was no fool, further than being silly enough to be a knave.