I had often heard my father speak of my uncle @Revis, who went to @America almost twenty years before I was born. Now he was my nearest living relative. No news of him had reached us for many years before my father died. I was familiar with his handwriting and the specimen before me was either genuine, or a very clever forgery. If it were genuine, Revis had obviously not heard of my father's death.
Extraordinary as the message was, the messenger was more so. He sat looking at me with a strange, half-crazed expression on his face.
"When did you leave my uncle?" I asked.
He sat perfectly still, as if unaware that I had spoken.
I drew my chair to his side and repeated the words in a loud voice, but he still did not seem to hear me. Evidently the old man could neither hear nor speak.
