# Henry Saylor — Can Such Things Be? character guide

> Henry Saylor in Can Such Things Be? by Ambrose Bierce.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Saylor

**First appearance:** 0013-a-tough-tussle

## Snapshot

A sardonic little man with a bitten finger and a nine-year secret, who tells a stranger the story of a grave he gouged himself and a man he is still afraid to meet.

## Who they are

Henry Saylor, called Gopher, narrates the deaths of Whisky and Jo with a consummate actor's control, drawing sympathy for his dramatis personae and then turning it, with a grin, upon himself. He kept a cussed secret for the sake of a woman who loved another man better than she loved him, and the keeping of it has eaten at him ever since. When the narrator asks why he held his tongue, he answers only that it is that kind of tongue, and not another word will he say.

## In the story

### [A Fruitless Assignment](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se/chapters/a-fruitless-assignment)

A reporter for the Cincinnati Commercial who is assigned to spend the night in the haunted Roscoe house.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se/characters/henry_saylor
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se/characters