He said: "I'm not discussing the question of whether you stole it or didn't--for that is a question that can be settled in the first bookstore we come to--I am only asking you _how_ you came to steal it, for that is where my curiosity is focalized." I couldn't accommodate him with this information, as I hadn't it in stock.

I could have made oath that I had not stolen anything, therefore my vanity was not hurt nor my spirit troubled.

At bottom I supposed that he had mistaken another book for mine, and was now getting himself into an untenable place and preparing sorrow for himself and triumph for me.
We entered a bookstore and he asked for "The Innocents Abroad" and for the dainty little blue and gold edition of Dr.Oliver Wendell Holmes's poems.

He opened the books, exposed their dedications and said: "Read them.

It is plain that the author of the second one stole the first one, isn't it ?" I was very much ashamed, and unspeakably astonished.