"Once when he attended a lecture he fell as he came down stairs, and struck his head such a violent blow that he never was the same boy afterwards, but gradually lost his mind. That has been about twelve years ago." It will be noticed here that the woman had previously stated eighteen years. This was the first discrepancy. Herriges continued: "I took him to the almshouse, where he was under Dr. Robert Smith's care for a month. Then his mother and his sister _here_ visited every day." [Here Herriges pointed to the woman who had positively said she was only a _neighbor_.] "At last, to please mother, I brought him home and called in Doctor Gardner, who said, after a long attendance, that he could do him no good. I have devoted my life to that boy, and washed him every day, and attended to his wants whenever I attended to my own, and combed and fed him." "Then how is it that his hair and beard have become just like felted cloth with filth, and how is it that he is covered from head to foot with vermin?" "What! how!" exclaimed Herriges with a decidedly mixed expression on his countenance. "Was there vermin? Well I don't know how he got them. I never saw any that's certain." "Was he so very violent that you kept him locked up in this cage?" "Oh, no, John was always as gentle as a lamb." "Then what are those iron and wooden slats at that window for?" "Oh, well, we were afraid that he might take a fit some time and get into the street and say strange things." At this juncture of the garbled narrative, Herriges became flurred, and begged the reporters to do him justice, repeating the words. "Now you will do me justice, won't you? You see they say I have kept him imprisoned in this way to get his share of the property. He has not got a cent in the world, for this house is only the property of mother during her life time. It is all she has and when she dies it will have to be divided among the whole six of us." "But look here," interrupted a gentlemen of the party, "what about those houses on Lombard street and the houses on Fourth street?" "Oh, those are all my own," answered he. "I worked and earned them myself." The questioner replied. "But you told me this morning that your father died in Oregon and left all his property to you alone. How do you make that agree with this last statement?" "Don't interrupt me. You confuse me, and put me out. I am trying to tell a straight story and you throw me out. I'll tell you again exactly all." He then repeated his former statement and wound up with a fresh appeal to be done justly by; which seemed in his mind to mean that his statement alone should be given to the public. But he was told that Mrs. Gibson's story would be published as well as his own, whereupon another sister, who had just arrived on the scene, pronounced Mrs. Gibson a liar, and added her solicitations to have that part of the history suspended.