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sutures of the human Oeconomy. These remains have been accepted by
persons in authority as conclusive of a destroyed and scattered Skinner,
but for my own entire conviction, and in view of his distinctive
idiosyncrasy, I must confess I should prefer fewer buttons and more
bones.
The glass eye of course has an air of extreme conviction, but if it
really is Skinner's--and even Mrs. Skinner did not certainly know if
that immobile eye of his was glass--something has changed it from a
liquid brown to a serene and confident blue. That shoulder-blade is an
extremely doubtful document, and I would like to put it side by side
with the gnawed scapulae of a few of the commoner domestic animals
before I admitted its humanity.
And where were Skinner's boots, for example? Perverted and strange as a
rat's appetite must be, is it conceivable that the same creatures that
could leave a lamb only half eaten, would finish up Skinner--hair,
bones, teeth, and boots?
I have closely questioned as many as I could of those who knew Skinner
at all intimately, and they one and all agree that they cannot imagine
anything eating him. He was the sort of man, as a retired seafaring
person living in one of Mr. W.W. Jacobs' cottages at Dunton Green told
me, with a guarded significance of manner not uncommon in those parts,
who would "get washed up anyhow," and as regards the devouring element
was "fit to put a fire out." He considered that Skinner would be as safe
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