I advised him to 'fly,' and certainly expected him to do it.

But he laughed at me; and he did not stop there; he led me down to the carpenter's shop, gave the carpenter a jeering and scornful lecture upon his silly pretensions, slapped his face, made him get down on his knees and beg--then went off and left me to contemplate the cheap and pitiful ruin of what, in my eyes, had so lately been a majestic and incomparable hero.

The carpenter blustered, flourished his knife, and doomed this Lynch in his usual volcanic style, the size of his fateful words undiminished; but it was all wasted upon me; he was a hero to me no longer, but only a poor, foolish, exposed humbug.

I was ashamed of him, and ashamed of myself; I took no further interest in him, and never went to his shop any more.
He was a heavy loss to me, for he was the greatest hero I had ever known.

The fellow must have had some talent; for some of his imaginary murders were so vividly and dramatically described that I remember all their details yet.
The people of Hannibal are not more changed than is the town.