Read it through once

Mr. Bixby asked me what I had stayed up there for. I confessed that it was to do Mr. W---- a benevolence,--tell him where he was. It took five minutes for the entire preposterousness of the thing to filter into Mr. Bixby's system, and then I judge it filled him nearly up to the chin; because he paid me a compliment--and not much of a one either. He said,