I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the
dilapidated tavern in the decayed mining camp Angel's, and I noticed that
he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression of winning gentleness
and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He roused up, and gave me
good day. I told him that a friend of mine had commissioned me to make
some inquiries about a cherished companion of his boyhood named Leonidas
W. Smiley--Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, a young minister of the Gospel, who
he had heard was at one time resident of Angel's Camp. I added that if
Mr. Wheeler could tell me anything about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley,
I would feel under many obligations to him.
Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his
chair, and then sat down and reeled off the monotonous narrative which
follows this paragraph. He never smiled he never frowned, he never
changed his voice from the gentle flowing key to which he tuned his
initial sentence, he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of
enthusiasm; but all through the interminable narrative there ran a vein
of impressive earnestness and sincerity, which showed me plainly that,
so far from his imagining that there was anything ridiculous or funny
about his story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and admired
its two heroes as men of transcendent genius in 'finesse.' I let him go
on in his own way, and never interrupted him once.
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