{"id":"01KG8AK9A3FG6GCSCWHC5JAAYW","cid":"bafkreibwjawd4a64n6nipdwxqqi6mgj5cus7ilqcgi6mq5jdyxxrw3uz2q","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1542,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","start_line":1467,"text":"for him. But, after diligent search, not finding you, and catching no\r\nglimpse of any of the others he had enumerated, doubts were at last\r\nsuggested; but doubts indirectly originating, as I can but think, from\r\nprior distrust unfeelingly proclaimed by another. Still, certain it is,\r\nI began to suspect.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ha, ha, ha!\"\r\n\r\nA sort of laugh more like a groan than a laugh; and yet, somehow, it\r\nseemed intended for a laugh.\r\n\r\nBoth turned, and the young clergyman started at seeing the wooden-legged\r\nman close behind him, morosely grave as a criminal judge with a\r\nmustard-plaster on his back. In the present case the mustard-plaster\r\nmight have been the memory of certain recent biting rebuffs and\r\nmortifications.\r\n\r\n\"Wouldn't think it was I who laughed would you?\"\r\n\r\n\"But who was it you laughed at? or rather, tried to laugh at?\" demanded\r\nthe young clergyman, flushing, \"me?\"\r\n\r\n\"Neither you nor any one within a thousand miles of you. But perhaps you\r\ndon't believe it.\"\r\n\r\n\"If he were of a suspicious temper, he might not,\" interposed the man in\r\ngray calmly, \"it is one of the imbecilities of the suspicious person to\r\nfancy that every stranger, however absent-minded, he sees so much as\r\nsmiling or gesturing to himself in any odd sort of way, is secretly\r\nmaking him his butt. In some moods, the movements of an entire street,\r\nas the suspicious man walks down it, will seem an express pantomimic\r\njeer at him. In short, the suspicious man kicks himself with his own\r\nfoot.\"\r\n\r\n\"Whoever can do that, ten to one he saves other folks' sole-leather,\"\r\nsaid the wooden-legged man with a crusty attempt at humor. But with\r\naugmented grin and squirm, turning directly upon the young clergyman,\r\n\"you still think it was _you_ I was laughing at, just now. To prove your\r\nmistake, I will tell you what I _was_ laughing at; a story I happened to\r\ncall to mind just then.\"\r\n\r\nWhereupon, in his porcupine way, and with sarcastic details, unpleasant\r\nto repeat, he related a story, which might, perhaps, in a good-natured\r\nversion, be rendered as follows:\r\n\r\nA certain Frenchman of New Orleans, an old man, less slender in purse\r\nthan limb, happening to attend the theatre one evening, was so charmed\r\nwith the character of a faithful wife, as there represented to the life,\r\nthat nothing would do but he must marry upon it. So, marry he did, a\r\nbeautiful girl from Tennessee, who had first attracted his attention by\r\nher liberal mould, and was subsequently recommended to him through her\r\nkin, for her equally liberal education and disposition. Though large,\r\nthe praise proved not too much. For, ere long, rumor more than\r\ncorroborated it, by whispering that the lady was liberal to a fault. But\r\nthough various circumstances, which by most Benedicts would have been\r\ndeemed all but conclusive, were duly recited to the old Frenchman by his\r\nfriends, yet such was his confidence that not a syllable would he\r\ncredit, till, chancing one night to return unexpectedly from a journey,\r\nupon entering his apartment, a stranger burst from the alcove: \"Begar!\"\r\ncried he, \"now I _begin_ to suspec.\"\r\n\r\nHis story told, the wooden-legged man threw back his head, and gave vent\r\nto a long, gasping, rasping sort of taunting cry, intolerable as that of\r\na high-pressure engine jeering off steam; and that done, with apparent\r\nsatisfaction hobbled away.\r\n\r\n\"Who is that scoffer,\" said the man in gray, not without warmth. \"Who is\r\nhe, who even were truth on his tongue, his way of speaking it would make\r\ntruth almost offensive as falsehood. Who is he?\"\r\n\r\n\"He who I mentioned to you as having boasted his suspicion of the\r\nnegro,\" replied the young clergyman, recovering from disturbance, \"in\r\nshort, the person to whom I ascribe the origin of my own distrust; he\r\nmaintained that Guinea was some white scoundrel, betwisted and painted\r\nup for a decoy. Yes, these were his very words, I think.\"\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJJRZWG3FSC5TH74ZQCTD","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AK8NG3SBM6DKN2D3K2R9W","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AK9AC7S2Y4HZ8DQXWPTK9","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:59.299Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:06.704Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}