"Yes, likely. Two shots don't 'most always go in the same hole." Then he went to the telegraph instrument. In a few minutes he could have told a story as wild as a Norse _saga_, but what he said, when Denver had responded, was only--
He is our office-boy and messenger, and, my senior tells me, has been employed by the firm in this capacity for about thirty years. He is a negro, about sixty years old, rather short and stout, with a mincing, noiseless gait, broad African features, beautiful teeth, and small, round, twinkling eyes, the movements of which are accompanied by little abrupt, sidewise turns of the head, like a bird. His manner is a curious mixture of deference and self-importance, his voice a soft, sibilant whisper, and as he was born and bred in Alexandria, Virginia, it seems almost superfluous to add that he and the letter "r" are not on speaking terms.
He has a prominent characteristic, which always attracts attention at first sight. This is the shape of his head, which is immensely large in proportion, very bald, and so abundant in various queer, knobby excrescences about the forehead and sides, and so unnaturally long and level on top, that for some time after I made his acquaintance I could never see him without finding myself forming absurd conjectures as to whether his cranium and the hydrostatic press could ever have become acquainted at some early period of his life; and so strong is this association of ideas that, even now, his sudden appearance invariably suggests to me the study of natural philosophy. Poor fellow! his chagrin was great when this peculiar conformation of his skull was first brought to his notice. He had been telling me for some time past of the "splendid piccha" he had had "took," and I had been promised a sight of it just as soon as it arrived from the photographer's. I confess I had not been sanguine as to the result, although I knew a handsome portrait was confidently expected by the sitter. One morning he deposited the photograph before me.
"Hello!" I cried, taking it in my hand; "here you are, hit off to the life."
"Do' say _that_, Mist' Dunkin, _do_' say hit, seh," he replied, in a tone of deep mortification. Then, catching a glimpse of the picture, his ire broke forth: "Nevvah wuz like _me_ in de wueld," he cried, in an elevated key; "nevvah _wuz_ ha'f so ugly ez that. I'm--I'm a bettah-lookin' man, Mist' Dunkin. Why, look at de color of de thing," contemptuously. "Cain' tell de face f'om de coat I nevvah set up to be what you'd call _faih_-cumplectid, but disha things iss same is that thaih ink; jess iss same. My hade do' look that a way, neitha. Naw, _seh_, 'taint s' bad 's that."