Roundabout Papers - Penn State University

Roundabout Papersbut I vow I heard Pinto say, with rather a ghastly grinat the porcelain stool,“Nay, nefer shague your gory locks at me,Dou canst not say I did it.”(He pronounced it, by the way, I did it, by which I knowthat Pinto was a German.)I heard Pinto say those very words, and sitting on theporcelain stool I saw, dimly at first, then with an awfuldistinctness—a ghost—an eidolon—a form—a headlessman seated, with his head in his lap, which wore anexpression of piteous surprise.At this minute, Mr. Gale entered from the front shopto show a customer some delf plates; and he did notsee—but we did—the figure rise up from the porcelainstool, shake its head, which it held in its hand, andwhich kept its eyes fixed sadly on us, and disappearbehind the guillotine.“Come to the ‘Gray’s-inn Coffee-house,’” Pinto said,“and I will tell you how the notch came to the axe.” Andwe walked down Holborn at about thirty-seven minutespast six o’clock.If there is anything in the above statement whichastonishes the reader, I promise him that in the nextchapter of this little story he will be astonished stillmore.PART II“You will excuse me,” I said, to my companion, “forremarking, that when you addressed the individual sittingon the porcelain stool, with his head in his lap,your ordinarily benevolent features”—(this I confesswas a bouncer, for between ourselves a more sinisterand ill-looking rascal than Mons. P. I have seldom seteyes on)—”your ordinarily handsome face wore an expressionthat was by no means pleasing. You grinned atthe individual just as you did at me when you went upto the cei—, pardon me, as I thought you did, when I216