It was frightfully gashed and
stabbed, but there was no blood. He took hold of the
left foot and tried to straighten the leg. In the effort
the body was displaced. The dead do not wish to be
moved--it protested with a faint, sickening odour.
Where it had lain were a few maggots, manifesting
an imbecile activity.
The surgeon looked at the captain. The captain
looked at the surgeon.
ONE OF TWINS
A Letter found among the Papers of the late
Mortimer Barr
YOU ask me if in my experience as one of a pair of
twins I ever observed anything unaccountable by the
natural laws with which we have acquaintance. As to
that you shall judge; perhaps we have not all ac-
quaintance with the same natural laws. You may
know some that I do not, and what is to me unac-
countable may be very clear to you.
You knew my brother John--that is, you knew
him when you knew that I was not present; but
neither you nor, I believe, any human being could
distinguish between him and me if we chose to seem
alike. Our parents could not; ours is the only in-
stance of which I have any knowledge of so close
resemblance as that. I speak of my brother John, but
I am not at all sure that his name was not Henry and
mine John. We were regularly christened, but after-
ward, in the very act of tattooing us with small dis-
tinguishing marks, the operator lost his reckoning;
and although I bear upon my forearm a small 'H'
and he bore a 'J,' it is by no means certain that the
letters ought not to have been transposed.
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