All this time I was blessedly forgetting one thing-- the fact that I was an inveterate talker in my sleep. But one night I awoke and found my bed-mate--my younger brother-- sitting up in bed and contemplating me by the light of the moon. I said--
'What is the matter?'
'You talk so much I can't sleep.'
I came to a sitting posture in an instant, with my kidneys in my throat and my hair on end.
'What did I say. Quick--out with it--what did I say?'
'Nothing much.'
'It's a lie--you know everything.'
'Everything about what?'
'You know well enough. About THAT.'
'About WHAT?--I don't know what you are talking about. I think you are sick or crazy or something. But anyway, you're awake, and I'll get to sleep while I've got a chance.'
He fell asleep and I lay there in a cold sweat, turning this new terror over in the whirling chaos which did duty as my mind. The burden of my thought was, How much did I divulge? How much does he know?--what a distress is this uncertainty! But by and by I evolved an idea--I would wake my brother and probe him with a supposititious case. I shook him up, and said--
'Suppose a man should come to you drunk--'
'This is foolish--I never get drunk.'
'I don't mean you, idiot--I mean the man. Suppose a MAN should come to you drunk, and borrow a knife, or a tomahawk, or a pistol, and you forgot to tell him it was loaded, and--'
'How could you load a tomahawk?'
'I don't mean the tomahawk, and I didn't say the tomahawk; I said the pistol. Now don't you keep breaking in that way, because this is serious. There's been a man killed.'
'What! in this town?'
'Yes, in this town.'
'Well, go on--I won't say a single word.'
'Well, then, suppose you forgot to tell him to be careful with it, because it was loaded, and he went off and shot himself with that pistol-- fooling with it, you know, and probably doing it by accident, being drunk. Well, would it be murder?'
'No--suicide.'
'No, no. I don't mean HIS act, I mean yours: would you be a murderer for letting him have that pistol?'
After deep thought came this answer--
'Well, I should think I was guilty of something--maybe murder-- yes, probably murder, but I don't quite know.'
This made me very uncomfortable. However, it was not a decisive verdict. I should have to set out the real case--there seemed to be no other way. But I would do it cautiously, and keep a watch out for suspicious effects. I said--
'I was supposing a case, but I am coming to the real one now. Do you know how the man came to be burned up in the calaboose?'
'No.'
'Haven't you the least idea?'
'Not the least.'
'Wish you may die in your tracks if you have?'
'Yes, wish I may die in my tracks.'
'Well, the way of it was this. The man wanted some matches to light his pipe. A boy got him some. The man set fire to the calaboose with those very matches, and burnt himself up.'
'Is that so?'
'Yes, it is. Now, is that boy a murderer, do you think?'
'Let me see. The man was drunk?'
'Yes, he was drunk.'
'Very drunk?'
'Yes.'
'And the boy knew it?'
'Yes, he knew it.'
There was a long pause. Then came this heavy verdict--
'If the man was drunk, and the boy knew it, the boy murdered that man. This is certain.'
Faint, sickening sensations crept along all the fibers of my body, and I seemed to know how a person feels who hears his death sentence pronounced from the bench. I waited to hear what my brother would say next. I believed I knew what it would be, and I was right. He said--
'I know the boy.'
I had nothing to say; so I said nothing. I simply shuddered. Then he added--
'Yes, before you got half through telling about the thing, I knew perfectly well who the boy was; it was Ben Coontz! '
I came out of my collapse as one who rises from the dead. I said, with admiration--
'Why, how in the world did you ever guess it?'
'You told it in your sleep.'
I said to myself, 'How splendid that is! This is a habit which must be cultivated.'
My brother rattled innocently on--
'When you were talking in your sleep, you kept mumbling something about "matches," which I couldn't make anything out of; but just now, when you began to tell me about the man and the calaboose and the matches, I remembered that in your sleep you mentioned Ben Coontz two or three times; so I put this and that together, you see, and right away I knew it was Ben that burnt that man up.'
I praised his sagacity effusively.