{"id":"01KG8AK8N5R5YF7E61TK0AZ9X8","cid":"bafkreiaigig3thcu5vyq3zca45a4kkjevspbeqr634hopqrgta6zf7kdnm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1040,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","start_line":948,"text":"CHAPTER IV.\r\n\r\nRENEWAL OF OLD ACQUAINTANCE.\r\n\r\n\r\n\"How do you do, Mr. Roberts?\"\r\n\r\n\"Eh?\"\r\n\r\n\"Don't you know me?\"\r\n\r\n\"No, certainly.\"\r\n\r\nThe crowd about the captain's office, having in good time melted away,\r\nthe above encounter took place in one of the side balconies astern,\r\nbetween a man in mourning clean and respectable, but none of the\r\nglossiest, a long weed on his hat, and the country-merchant\r\nbefore-mentioned, whom, with the familiarity of an old acquaintance, the\r\nformer had accosted.\r\n\r\n\"Is it possible, my dear sir,\" resumed he with the weed, \"that you do\r\nnot recall my countenance? why yours I recall distinctly as if but half\r\nan hour, instead of half an age, had passed since I saw you. Don't you\r\nrecall me, now? Look harder.\"\r\n\r\n\"In my conscience--truly--I protest,\" honestly bewildered, \"bless my\r\nsoul, sir, I don't know you--really, really. But stay, stay,\" he\r\nhurriedly added, not without gratification, glancing up at the crape on\r\nthe stranger's hat, \"stay--yes--seems to me, though I have not the\r\npleasure of personally knowing you, yet I am pretty sure I have at least\r\n_heard_ of you, and recently too, quite recently. A poor negro aboard\r\nhere referred to you, among others, for a character, I think.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, the cripple. Poor fellow. I know him well. They found me. I have\r\nsaid all I could for him. I think I abated their distrust. Would I could\r\nhave been of more substantial service. And apropos, sir,\" he added, \"now\r\nthat it strikes me, allow me to ask, whether the circumstance of one\r\nman, however humble, referring for a character to another man, however\r\nafflicted, does not argue more or less of moral worth in the latter?\"\r\n\r\nThe good merchant looked puzzled.\r\n\r\n\"Still you don't recall my countenance?\"\r\n\r\n\"Still does truth compel me to say that I cannot, despite my best\r\nefforts,\" was the reluctantly-candid reply.\r\n\r\n\"Can I be so changed? Look at me. Or is it I who am mistaken?--Are you\r\nnot, sir, Henry Roberts, forwarding merchant, of Wheeling, Pennsylvania?\r\nPray, now, if you use the advertisement of business cards, and happen to\r\nhave one with you, just look at it, and see whether you are not the man\r\nI take you for.\"\r\n\r\n\"Why,\" a bit chafed, perhaps, \"I hope I know myself.\"\r\n\r\n\"And yet self-knowledge is thought by some not so easy. Who knows, my\r\ndear sir, but for a time you may have taken yourself for somebody else?\r\nStranger things have happened.\"\r\n\r\nThe good merchant stared.\r\n\r\n\"To come to particulars, my dear sir, I met you, now some six years\r\nback, at Brade Brothers & Co's office, I think. I was traveling for a\r\nPhiladelphia house. The senior Brade introduced us, you remember; some\r\nbusiness-chat followed, then you forced me home with you to a family\r\ntea, and a family time we had. Have you forgotten about the urn, and\r\nwhat I said about Werter's Charlotte, and the bread and butter, and that\r\ncapital story you told of the large loaf. A hundred times since, I have\r\nlaughed over it. At least you must recall my name--Ringman, John\r\nRingman.\"\r\n\r\n\"Large loaf? Invited you to tea? Ringman? Ringman? Ring? Ring?\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah sir,\" sadly smiling, \"don't ring the changes that way. I see you\r\nhave a faithless memory, Mr. Roberts. But trust in the faithfulness of\r\nmine.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, to tell the truth, in some things my memory aint of the very\r\nbest,\" was the honest rejoinder. \"But still,\" he perplexedly added,\r\n\"still I----\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh sir, suffice it that it is as I say. Doubt not that we are all well\r\nacquainted.\"\r\n\r\n\"But--but I don't like this going dead against my own memory; I----\"\r\n\r\n\"But didn't you admit, my dear sir, that in some things this memory of\r\nyours is a little faithless? Now, those who have faithless memories,\r\nshould they not have some little confidence in the less faithless\r\nmemories of others?\"\r\n\r\n\"But, of this friendly chat and tea, I have not the slightest----\"\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJJRS9JWFH12MSZTF7QA5","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AK8N5WJD6JA9PKN63J7BQ","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:58.629Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:06.414Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}