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xviii on Gravier Street, or whether Bigney — Mark F. Bigney, then managing editor of the Item — sent for me to come and see if we wanted to take him on.

"You see, Hearn was a most unprepossessing object at first sight. That odd rolling eye of his was the only thing you could see at first — enormous, protruding. After you got used to that eye, you saw that his other features were very good, and his face refined. But in addition, when he first presented himself here he was miserably dressed, and even his hands were grimy and his nails black.

"He had had a hard time, you see, since he had come down from Cincinnati; and one reason why Bigney hesitated about taking him on was that we had heard that he had had to leave Memphis on account of his violent Republican ideas. Perhaps I oughtn't to tell that even now — but surely the war is over by this time.