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170 he believed me. But the less I can say about Uncle Ben the better.

I might add, however, that though he and Patton live in the same neighborhood, they have never been seen sitting on the rail-fence talking, as sometimes neighbors do. The truth is, they haven’t spoken since. The ablest debater couldn’t make Ben Davenport believe that we didn’t know the lunch was under the buggy seat when we drove out of town.

Uncle Ben was a genius in a way; he was what you would call a success. If he owned a good pocket-knife with a good rivet that he could snap the blade back and forth from his finger to his thumb, then if he had an old knife that looked good but wasn’t, to trade on, then he was happy.