fast to the "bed-rock;" that the jury (they were all silver miners) canvassed the difficulty a moment and then got out their powder and fuse, and proceeded to drill a hole under him, in order to blast him from his position, when Mr.——, "with that delicacy so characteristic of him, forbade them, observing that it would be little less than sacrilege to do such a thing."
From beginning to end the "petrified man" was a string of roaring absurdities, albeit they were told with an unfair pretence of truth that even imposed upon me to some extent, and I was in some danger of believing in my own fraud. But I really had no desire to deceive anybody, and no expectation of doing it. I depended on the way the petrified man was sitting to explain to the public that he was a swindle. Yet I purposely mixed that up with other things, hoping to make it obscure—and I did. I would describe the position of one foot, and then say his right thumb was against the side of his nose; then talk about his other foot, and presently come back and say the fingers of his right hand were spread apart; then talk about the back his head a little, then return and say the left thumb was hooked into the right little finger; then ramble off about something else, and by and by drift back again and remark that the fingers of the left hand were spread like those of the right. But it was too ingenious. I mixed it up rather too much; and so all that description of the attitude, as a key to the humbuggery of the article, was entirely lost, for nobody but me ever discovered and comprehended the
