A Queer Race: The Story of a Strange People — page 27: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

24 A QUEER RACE. surprise; for up to that moment I had thought the bout- swain’s story pure illusion, and himself as crazy on the point as Peyton said he was. ‘‘Yes, I have it. My father, he gave it me just afore he died. ‘Tom,’ he:says, ‘I cannot leave you nomoney, but I gives you this dokyment. ‘lake care of it, and look out for the Santa Anna, and you'll die a rich man.’ Will you read it, Mr. Erle?” ‘Certainly. Ill read it with pleasure.” Bolsover rose from the coil of ropes, slipped into the forecastle, and in afew minutes came back, with a smile of satisfaction on his face and a highly polished tin case in his hand. ‘«‘ Here it is,” he said; ‘ you'll find it inside.” ‘But this is surely not the case your father found at the Azores?” ‘No. That was all rusty and much battered. He had hard work to get the dokyment out without spoiling it. He got this case made a-purpose. Nobody hus ever read it but him and me. Hverybody as I mentioned it to al- ways laughed, and that made me not like showing it. When you have read it, Mr. Erle, you'll tell me what you think. But keep the dokyment to yourself. What’s least said ig soonest mended, you know; and if you was to men- tion it to the others they’d only laugh. And now”’— looking at his watch—‘‘I must pipe up the second dog- watch.” Promising to observe the utmost discretion, I put the tin case in my pocket, went to the after-part of the ship, lighted a cigar, sat me down on a Southampton chair, and proceeded to carry out ‘'om’s wish by reading the paper which had so much excited his imagination, and was now, in spite of myself, beginning to excite mine. CHAPTER V. THE DOCUMENT. THE ‘‘dokyment,” as poor ‘'om called it, though it seemed to have been carefully used (the leaves being neatly stitched together and protected by a canvas cover), had suffered much from wear and tear, the rust of the original tin case, and the frequent thumbings of its two readers. The ink was faded, the handwriting small and comicbooks.com