Evidence

Evidence by Murray Leinster
All-Story Weekly, July 12, 1919

It was hot. My pony jogged listlessly along, without interest or
animation, while I was only concerned with the problem of getting to
shade and water, but especially shade. The sun was hot enough to fry
any one's brains in his skull, and my saddle burned my hand if I
touched it where the sun struck it. There was a trickling stream of
perspiration down either cheek, and a third stream down my nose.
From time to time I smudged the dust across my face in an attempt to
stop the streams, but the action merely interrupted their course.
It was in this peculiarly Texan atmosphere that I came upon Jimmy
Calton.
He was standing by the open hood of one of those mechanical miracles
known as a "tin lizzy," holding a sooted spark-plug in a cloth in one
hand and attempting to clean it with the other. He was swearing the
while, dispassionately, in a curious mingling of good Anglo-Saxon and
'dobe Spanish.
"Hello, Jimmy," I said listlessly.
He looked up and nodded.
"Say, you look hot," he observed. "Come on an' ride a ways with me.
Lizzy heah'll be runnin' in a minute, an' you can tie yo' pony on
behind."
"Going anywhere in particular?" I asked.
"Over t' see th' coroner," he told me. "Ol' Abe Martin got shot th' other
day an' folks are sayin' Harry Temple done it. They got 'im locked up,

anyways."
I dismounted stiffly and tied my pony to the rear of the machine,
allowing him plenty of lead-rope. Jimmy finished wiping the last of the
spark-plugs, apostrophizing the car in the mean time.
"You creakin', growlin', spark-plug-foulin', blasted hunka tin," he
finished lyrically, and put down the hood.
He went to the crank and turned it half a dozen times. The engine
caught, sputtered, and began to run with a pretentious roar.
Jimmy hastily reached for the wheel and adjusted the spark and throttle,
then climbed in leisurely. With a grinding and a lurch we started off,
my pony following docilely behind.
"Yes, tin, tin, tin," said Jimmy, doing mysterious things with his feet:
I have scorned yuh and I've flayed yuh,
But by the guy who made yuh,
You are bettuh than a big car,
Hunka tin!
We slipped into the car's second and highest speed, and began to run
more smoothly. Jimmy looked behind to see that my pony was all right
and began to roll a cigarette with his left hand, while expertly guiding
the car around the numerous ruts and rocks in the roadway. I watched
the process of cigarette-rolling without interest.
"I can't seem to get the knack of that," I remarked, when he had
finished and was licking the edge of the paper to hold it in place.
"Imitatin'," said Jimmy casually. "There ain't any way that everybody
can do. Nobody else I know rolls 'em like this. It's jus' easiest fo' me.
You'll have to mess around till you find a way that fits yo' fingers."

"I'll smoke tailor-made," I said, "rather than bother with learning."
"Jus' like th' new generation," said Jimmy severely. Jimmy, it may be
said, is thirty, but affects the authority of a man of eighty. "Wantin'
everything done by somebody else, or else by machin'ry. They even
want theh thinkin' done fo' them."
"It's too hot to think down here." I took off my hat and wiped the
moisture off the sweat-band.
"Judgin' by the little bit of it people do," Jimmy remarked acridly,
"most folks agree with you. Most people look at thinkin' as somethin'
they was taught to do in schools, an', as such, somethin' t' forget as soon
as possible. From th' folks that don't think about th' spigoty revoltosos
jus' across th' border an' are pained an' surprised when th' spigoties run
off some o' their cattle, down to th' folks that ud rather buy cigarettes
than bother thinkin' up a way to roll 'em one- handed fo' themselves,
everybody's jus' th' same. Why, 'twouldn't surprise me none at all if
most folks tol' th' truth jus' because it's too much trouble t' think up a
lie."
I accepted his rebuke in the matter of cigarettes meekly and said
nothing.
"It's a fac'," said Jimmy, with an air of mournful pity for a race fallen so
low. "I saw in a book th' other day that th' best lyin' is th' lie that's near
th' truth. Ain't that ridiculous? That's jus' justifyin' laziness. Ef folks've
got th' goods on yuh, an' yuh can't get away from th' truth, then it's all
right t' dilute th' truth until it's harmless, but otherwise a good lie beats
th' almost-truth nine ways from Sunday.
"Only it's a lot o' trouble