laughed
right in his face. Everybody was shocked. Everybody says, "Why,
DOCTOR!" and Abner Shackleford says:

"Why, Robinson, hain't you heard the news? This is Harvey Wilks."

The king he smiled eager, and shoved out his flapper, and says:

"Is it my poor brother's dear good friend and physician? I--"

"Keep your hands off of me!" says the doctor. "YOU talk like an
Englishman, DON'T you? It's the worst imitation I ever heard. YOU Peter
Wilks's brother! You're a fraud, that's what you are!"

Well, how they all took on! They crowded around the doctor and tried to
quiet him down, and tried to explain to him and tell him how Harvey 'd
showed in forty ways that he WAS Harvey, and knowed everybody by name,
and the names of the very dogs, and begged and BEGGED him not to hurt
Harvey's feelings and the poor girl's feelings, and all that. But it
warn't no use; he stormed right along, and said any man that pretended to
be an Englishman and couldn't imitate the lingo no better than what he
did was a fraud and a liar. The poor girls was hanging to the king and
crying; and all of a sudden the doctor ups and turns on THEM. He says:

"I was your father's friend, and I'm your friend; and I warn you as a
friend, and an honest one that wants to protect you and keep you out of
harm and trouble, to turn your backs on that scoundrel and have nothing
to do with him, the ignorant tramp, with his idiotic Greek and Hebrew, as
he calls it. He is the thinnest kind of an impostor--has come here with
a lot of empty names and facts which he picked up somewheres, and you
take them for PROOFS, and are helped to fool yourselves by these foolish
friends here, who ought to know better. Mary Jane Wilks, you know me for
your friend, and for your unselfish friend, too. Now listen to me; turn
this pitiful rascal out--I BEG you to do it. Will you?"

Mary Jane straightened herself up, and my, but she was handsome! She
says:

"HERE is my answer." She hove up the bag of money and put it in the
king's hands, and says, "Take this six thousand dollars, and invest for
me and my sisters any way you want to, and don't give us no receipt for
it."

Then she put her arm around the king on one side, and Susan and the
hare-lip done the same on the other. Everybody clapped their hands and
stomped on the floor like a perfect storm, whilst the king held up his
head and smiled proud. The doctor says:

"All right; I wash MY hands of the matter.