He never smiled，he never frowned，he never changed hisvoice from the gentle-flowing key to which he tuned the initialsentence，he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of enthusiasm；but all through the interminable narrative there ran a vein ofimpressive earnestness and sincerity，which showed me plainlythat，so far from his imagining that there was any thing ridiculousor funny about his story，he regarded it as a really importantmatter，and admired itS two heroes as men of transcendentgenius in finesse．
To me，the spectacle of a man drifting serenely along through such a queer yarn without ever smiling，was exquisitely absurd．As I said before，I asked him to tell me what he knew of Rev．Leonidas W．Smiley，and he replied as follows．I let him go on in his own way，and never interrupted him once： There was a feller here once bv the name of Jim Smiley，in the winter of49 or may be it was the spring of50 I dont recollect exactly，somehow，though what makes me think it was one orthe other is because I remember the big flume wasnt finished when he first came to the camp；but any wav，he was the curiosest man about always betting on any thing that turned up you ever see，if he could get any bodv to bet on the other side；and if he couldn’t，he’d change sides．Any way that suited the other man would suit him any way just so’s he got a bet，he was satisfied．But still he was lucky，uncommon lucky；he most always come out winner．He was always ready and laying for a chance；there couldnt be no solittry thing mentioned but that fellerd offer to bet on it，and-take any side you please，as I was just telling you．
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