That was the letter." "What did your father do, sir ?" I asked.
"Do ?" says Mr.Franklin.

"I'll tell you what he did.

He brought the invaluable faculty, called common sense, to bear on the Colonel's letter.

The whole thing, he declared, was simply absurd.

Somewhere in his Indian wanderings, the Colonel had picked up with some wretched crystal which he took for a diamond.