Wondering, I took them down and piled them on the couch beside him, one after another, little bundles done up carefully in flaring tissue with black characters inked on them.
"That one!" he whispered, and I undid the one under his finger, discovering half a dozen collars, coiled with their long imprisonment.
"And that one, and that one—"
They covered his legs and rose about his thin shoulders, those treasured soiled collars of his, gleaming under the lamp like the funeral-pyre of some fantastic potentate. Nothing was heard in the room save the faint crackling of the paper, and after a moment Lem Pigeon murmuring in amazement to his neighbor, over in a corner.
"Look a-there, will ye? He's got my collar with the blood spot onto it where the Lisbon woman's husband hit me that time down to New Bedford. What ye make o' that now?"
Yen Sin lifted his eyes to Mate Snow's hanging over him in wonder.
"Mista Matee Snow confessee, yes?"
There was a moment of shocked silence while our great man stared at Yen Sin. He took his weight from the counter and stood up straight.
"I confess my sins to God," he said.
The other moved a fluttering hand over his collars. "Mista Yen Sin allee same like Mista God, yes."