Page:Sketches by Mark Twain.djvu/268

266 with intense interest for a while, drew a folded copy of our paper from his bosom, and said—

"There, you wrote that. Read it to me—quick! Relieve me. I suffer."

I read as follows; and as the sentences fell from my lips I could see the relief come, I could see the drawn muscles relax, and the anxiety go out of the face, and rest and peace steal over the features like the merciful moonlight over a desolate landscape:

The excited listener sprang toward me to shake hands, and said—

"There, there—I know I am all right now, because you have read it just as I did, word for word. But, stranger, when I read it this morning, I said to myself, I never, never believed it before, notwithstanding my friends kept