Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 21:32:23 -0500
Subject: Re: (urth) the dog-boy of Carnies Past
From: Adam Stephanides 

on 8/4/02 3:16 AM, Roy C. Lackey at rclackey@stic.net wrote:

> I said only that it was "possibly" Smart. Against that idea is the near
> certainty that the tall man with thick glasses is Tom Lavine. Tom's
> constitution is such that, as Charlie writes, he "won't live long". If the
> sepia is natural, the picture taken decades ago, how likely is it that Tom
> would still be alive to pay court to Doris at a time when Weer was about
> fifty? Charlie referred to Tom as a "kid". Weer was president for only about
> 15 years before he died, not enough time for the photos to have faded and
> turned brown on the day he showed them to Miss Hadow. If the sepia was
> faked, the pictures still shouldn't have faded in 15 years. In other words,
> it would be pretty hard for Tom Lavine to have been a contemporary of both
> Smart and Doris.

In fact, Charlie says that Tom is eighteen.  So if the letter is factual,
and the picture is indeed of Tom, it must have been taken around the time
the letter was written, which is inconsistent with the "faded sepia" color,
as you argue.  So either the letter is a fiction, or the picture is not of
Tom, or some sort of weird time-slippage thing is going on, as mantis
suggests.  And why does Charlie not mention the second picture in his
letter?

--Adam


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