Beadle's Dime Novels No. 38: The Wrong Man — page 92: what you’re looking at

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

04 THE WRONG MAN. Among the audience there was another witness, who, al though little noticed, took a deep interest in the proceedings This was Cato, the black boy, belonging to Mr. Sedley. To him the proceedings wore an air of terrible reality. During the speech of the prosecuting attorney, and the charge of the Judge to the jury, his eyes seemed fairly starting from his head. And when the dreadful sentence of death was pro- nounced, he came near falling to the earth, so excessive was his agitation. Elbowing his way to the tin peddler, he asked, in a husky whisper: “Massa Dodge, is dey gwine to hang him ?” “ Hang who ?” “Massa Dudley.” “That's what they say.” “ How soon ?” “Three weeks from to-day, they say,’ replied the peddler, with a meaning emphasis upon the last two words. “Free weeks,” repliel the negro, as if communing with himself. “ Free weeks; dat am a consiberable time.” “Not so darned long, either. What did you ax for, Snow- ball ?” “ Nuffin, nuffin,” replied Cato, as though he disliked to be questioned upon it. “You needn’t mind telling Miss Lucy that they’re gwine to hang him,” added Dodge. “ Do you understand ?” “ Why not?” “They hain’t hung him, you know, and you needn't scure her. Remember.” “ I will.” “See then—hello! beg pardon, Shoe-pegs.”’ As he spoke, the peddler ejected a mouthful of tobacco- juice square in the face of the shoemaker, who was striving to catch the tenor of his words. The man humbly wiped his face, deeming it best to say nothing, and was not caught eavesdropping again. The town of Adrianopolis nominaily jontained a jail and & penitentiary ; but he who sought for these edifices through the village, would have found their existence, like that cf many other things projected by its far-furward-looking founder, in futuro—a fiction. In the meanwhile, the block-house, conmicldoookks. conn