In vain I remonstrated my
innocence; no choice was left to me but to pay or go to gaol.
"By that time I knew pretty well the character of the people among whom
I was living; I knew there was no justice to whom I could apply; I
reckoned also that, if once put in gaol, they would not only take the
two hundred and fifty dollars, but also the whole I possessed. So I
submitted, as it was the best I could do; I removed immediately to
another part of Texas, but it would not do. Faith, the Texans are a very
ugly set of gents."
"And Meyer," I interrupted, "what of him?"
"Oh!" replied the parson, "that is another story. Why, he returned to
New Orleans, where, with his three sons, he committed an awful murder
upon the cashier of the legislature; he was getting away with twenty
thousand dollars, but being caught in the act, he was tried, sentenced,
and hanged, with all his hopeful progeny, and the old negro hangman of
New Orleans had the honour of making, in one day, a close acquaintance
with a general, a colonel, a major, and a judge."
"What, talking still!" exclaimed the doctor, yawning: he had just awoke.
"What the devil can you have babbled about during the whole blessed
night? Why, 'tis morn."
Saying this, he took up his watch, looked at it, applied it to his ear,
to see if it had not stopped, and exclaimed:--
"By jingo, but I am only half-past one.
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