He had fought and lost all his battles--bitter struggles to think of even now, after the lapse of years, and the little he had to tell of himself was an intricate mingling of truth and falsehood, grotesque exaggeration, purposeless mendacity.
He and Mahaffy had met exactly one month before, on the deck of the steamer from which they had been put ashore at the river landing two miles from Pleasantville.

Mahaffy's historic era had begun just there.
Apparently he had no past of which he could be brought to speak.

He admitted having been born in Boston some sixty years before, and was a printer by trade; further than this, he had not revealed himself, drunk or sober.
At the judge's elbow Mr.Mahaffy changed his position with nervous suddenness.

Then he folded his long arms.
"You asked if there was any news, Price; while we were waiting for the boat a raft tied up to the bank; the fellow aboard of it had a man he'd fished up out of the river, a man who'd been pretty well cut to pieces." "Who was he ?" asked the judge.
"Nobody knew, and he wasn't conscious.

I shouldn't be surprised if he never opens his lips again.