maggots, manifesting an imbecile activity.

The surgeon looked at the captain. The captain looked at the
surgeon.



ONE OF TWINS
A LETTER FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF THE LATE MORTIMER BARR



You ask me if in my experience as one of a pair of twins I ever
observed anything unaccountable by the natural laws with which we
have acquaintance. As to that you shall judge; perhaps we have not
all acquaintance with the same natural laws. You may know some that
I do not, and what is to me unaccountable may be very clear to you.

You knew my brother John--that is, you knew him when you knew that I
was not present; but neither you nor, I believe, any human being
could distinguish between him and me if we chose to seem alike. Our
parents could not; ours is the only instance of which I have any
knowledge of so close resemblance as that. I speak of my brother
John, but I am not at all sure that his name was not Henry and mine
John. We were regularly christened, but afterward, in the very act
of tattooing us with small distinguishing marks, the operator lost
his reckoning; and although I bear upon my forearm a small "H" and he
bore a "J," it is by no means certain that the letters ought not to
have been transposed. During our boyhood our parents tried to
distinguish us more obviously by our clothing and other simple