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The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson ...............................................................................................1

Mark Twain............................................................................................................................1

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A WHISPER TO THE READER There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be

destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his character is

about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has

brought him to. Instead of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt.

A person who is ignorant of legal matters is always liable to make mistakes when he tries to

photograph a court scene with his pen; and so I was not willing to let the law chapters in this book

go to press without first subjecting them to rigid and exhausting revision and correction by a trained

barristerif that is what they are called. These chapters are right, now, in every detail, for they

were rewritten under the immediate eye of William Hicks, who studied law part of a while in

southwest Missouri thirtyfive years ago and then came over here to Florence for his health and is

still helping for exercise and board in Macaroni Vermicelli's horsefeed shed, which is up the back

alley as you turn around the corner out of the Piazza del Duomo just beyond the house where that

stone that Dante used to sit on six hundred years ago is let into the wall when he let on to be

watching them build Giotto's campanile and yet always got tired looking as Beatrice passed along

on her way to get a chunk of chestnut cake to defend herself with in case of a Ghibelline outbreak

before she got to school, at the same old stand where they sell the same old cake to this day and it

is just as light and good as it was then, too, and this is not flattery, far from it. He was a little rusty

on his law, but he rubbed up for this book, and those two or three legal chapters are right and

Given under my hand this second day of January, 1893, at the Villa Viviani, village of Settignano,

three miles back of Florence, on the hills the same certainly affording the most charming view to

be found on this planet, and with it the most dreamlike and enchanting sunsets to be found in any

planet or even in any solar systemand given, too, in the swell room of the house, with the busts

of Cerretani senators and other grandees of this line looking approvingly down upon me, as they

used to look down upon Dante, and mutely asking me to adopt them into my family, which I do with

pleasure, for my remotest ancestors are but spring chickens compared with these robed and stately

antiques, and it will be a great and satisfying lift for me, that six hundred years will.

The scene of this chronicle is the town of Dawson's Landing, on the Missouri side of the

In 1830 it was a snug collection of modest one and two story frame dwellings, whose

whitewashed exteriors were almost concealed from sight by climbing tangles of rose vines,

honeysuckles, and morning glories. Each of these pretty homes had a garden in front fenced with

white palings and opulently stocked with hollyhocks, marigolds, touchmenots, prince'sfeathers,

and other oldfashioned flowers; while on the windowsills of the houses stood wooden boxes

containing moss rose plants and terracotta pots in which grew a breed of geranium whose spread

of intensely red blossoms accented the prevailing pink tint of the roseclad housefront like an

explosion of flame. When there was room on the ledge outside of the pots and boxes for a cat, the

cat was there in sunny weatherstretched at full length, asleep and blissful, with her furry belly

to the sun and a paw curved over her nose. Then that house was complete, and its contentment

and peace were made manifest to the world by this symbol, whose testimony is infallible. A home

without a catand a wellfed, wellpetted, and properly revered cat may be a perfect home,

All along the streets, on both sides, at the outer edge of the brick sidewalks, stood locust trees with

trunks protected by wooden boxing, and these furnished shade for summer and a sweet fragrancer

in spring, when the clusters of buds came forth. The main street, one block back from the river, and

running parallel with it, was the sole business street. It was six blocks long, and in each block two

or three brick stores, three stories high, towered above interjected bunches of little frame shops.

Swinging signs creaked in the wind the street's whole length. The candystriped pole, which

indicates nobility proud and ancient along the palacebordered canals of Venice, indicated merely

the humble barbershop along the main street of Dawson's Landing. On a chief corner stood a lofty

unpainted pole wreathed from top to bottom with tin pots and pans and cups, the chief tinmonger's

noisy notice to the world (when the wind blew) that his shop was on hand for business at that

The hamlet's front was washed by the clear waters of the great river; its body stretched itself

rearward up a gentle incline; its most rearward border fringed itself out and scattered its houses

about its base line of the hills; the hills rose high, enclosing the town in a halfmoon curve, clothed

Steamboats passed up and down every hour or so. Those belonging to the little Cairo line and the

little Memphis line always stopped; the big Orleans liners stopped for hails only, or to land

passengers or freight; and this was the case also with the great flotilla of "transients." These latter

came out of a dozen rivers the Illinois, the Missouri, the Upper Mississippi, the Ohio, the

Monongahela, the Tennessee, the Red River, the White River, and so onand were bound every

whither and stocked with every imaginable comfort or necessity, which the Mississippi's

communities could want, from the frosty Falls of St. Anthony down through nine climates to torrid

Dawson's Landing was a slaveholding town, with a rich, slaveworked grain and pork country back

of it. The town was sleepy and comfortable and contented. It was fifty years old, and was growing

The chief citizen was York Leicester Driscoll, about forty years old, judge of the county court. He

was very proud of his old Virginian ancestry, and in his hospitalities and his rather formal and

stately manners, he kept up its traditions. He was fine and just and generous. To be a

gentlemana gentleman without stain or blemishwas his only religion, and to it he was always

faithful. He was respected, esteemed, and beloved by all of the community. He was well off, and

was gradually adding to his store. He and his wife were very nearly happy, but not quite, for they

had no children. The longing for the treasure of a child had grown stronger and stronger as the

With this pair lived the judge's widowed sister, Mrs. Rachel Pratt, and she also was

childlesschildless, and sorrowful for that reason, and not to be comforted. The women were good

and commonplace people, and did their duty, and had their reward in clear consciences and the

Pembroke Howard, lawyer and bachelor, aged almost forty, was another old Virginian grandee with

proved descent from the First Families. He was a fine, majestic creature, a gentleman according to

the nicest requirements of the Virginia rule, a devoted Presbyterian, an authority on the "code", and

a man always courteously ready to stand up before you in the field if any act or word of his had

seemed doubtful or suspicious to you, and explain it with any weapon you might prefer from

bradawls to artillery. He was very popular with the people, and was the judge's dearest friend.

Then there was Colonel Cecil Burleigh Essex, another F.F.V. of formidable caliberhowever, with

Percy Northumberland Driscoll, brother to the judge, and younger than he by five years, was a

married man, and had had children around his hearthstone; but they were attacked in detail by

measles, croup, and scarlet fever, and this had given the doctor a chance with his effective

antediluvian methods; so the cradles were empty. He was a prosperous man, with a good head for

speculations, and his fortune was growing. On the first of February, 1830, two boy babes were born

in his house; one to him, one to one of his slave girls, Roxana by name. Roxana was twenty years

old. She was up and around the same day, with her hands full, for she was tending both babes.

Mrs. Percy Driscoll died within the week. Roxy remained in charge of the children. She had her own

way, for Mr. Driscoll soon absorbed himself in his speculations and left her to her own devices.

In that same month of February, Dawson's Landing gained a new citizen. This was Mr. David

Wilson, a young fellow of Scotch parentage. He had wandered to this remote region from his

birthplace in the interior of the State of New York, to seek his fortune. He was twentyfive years

old, college bred, and had finished a postcollege course in an Eastern law school a couple of

He was a homely, freckled, sandyhaired young fellow, with an intelligent blue eye that had

frankness and comradeship in it and a covert twinkle of a pleasant sort. But for an unfortunate

remark of his, he would no doubt have entered at once upon a successful career at Dawson's

Landing. But he made his fatal remark the first day he spent in the village, and it "gaged" him. He

had just made the acquaintance of a group of citizens when an invisible dog began to yelp and

snarl and howl and make himself very comprehensively disagreeable, whereupon young Wilson

The group searched his face with curiosity, with anxiety even, but found no light there, no

expression that they could read. They fell away from him as from something uncanny, and went

"Said he wished he owned _half_ of the dog, the idiot," said a third. "What did he reckon would

become of the other half if he killed his half? Do you reckon he thought it would live?"

"Why, he must have thought it, unless he IS the downrightest fool in the world; because if he hadn't

thought it, he would have wanted to own the whole dog, knowing that if he killed his half and the

other half died, he would be responsible for that half just the same as if he had killed that half

"Yes, it does. If he owned one half of the general dog, it would be so; if he owned one end of the

dog and another person owned the other end, it would be so, just the same; particularly in the first

case, because if you kill one half of a general dog, there ain't any man that can tell whose half it

"No, he couldn't either; he couldn't and not be responsible if the other end died, which it would. In

That's what he is;" said No. 4. "He's a labrickjust a Simonpure labrick, if there was one."

"Yes, sir, he's a dam fool. That's the way I put him up," said No. 5. "Anybody can think different that

"I'm with you, gentlemen," said No. 6. "Perfect jackassyes, and it ain't going too far to say he is a

Mr. Wilson stood elected. The incident was told all over the town, and gravely discussed by

everybody. Within a week he had lost his first name; Pudd'nhead took its place. In time he came to

be liked, and well liked too; but by that time the nickname had got well stuck on, and it stayed. That

first day's verdict made him a fool, and he was not able to get it set aside, or even modified. The

nickname soon ceased to carry any harsh or unfriendly feeling with it, but it held its place, and was

Adam was but humanthis explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he

wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he

Pudd'nhead Wilson had a trifle of money when he arrived, and he bought a small house on the

extreme western verge of the town. Between it and Judge Driscoll's house there was only a grassy

yard, with a paling fence dividing the properties in the middle. He hired a small office down in the

But his deadly remark had ruined his chanceat least in the law. No clients came. He took down

his sign, after a while, and put it up on his own house with the law features knocked out of it. It

offered his services now in the humble capacities of land surveyor and expert accountant. Now and

then he got a job of surveying to do, and now and then a merchant got him to straighten out his

books. With Scotch patience and pluck he resolved to live down his reputation and work his way

into the legal field yet. Poor fellow, he could foresee that it was going to take him such a weary long

He had a rich abundance of idle time, but it never hung heavy on his hands, for he interested

himself in every new thing that was born into the universe of ideas, and studied it, and

experimented upon it at his house. One of his pet fads was palmistry. To another one he gave no

name, neither would he explain to anybody what its purpose was, but merely said it was an

amusement. In fact, he had found that his fads added to his reputation as a pudd'nhead; there, he

was growing chary of being too communicative about them. The fad without a name was one which

dealt with people's finger marks. He carried in his coat pocket a shallow box with grooves in it, and

in the grooves strips of glass five inches long and three inches wide. Along the lower edge of each

strip was pasted a slip of white paper. He asked people to pass their hands through their hair (thus

collecting upon them a thin coating of the natural oil) and then making a thumbmark on a glass

strip, following it with the mark of the ball of each finger in succession. Under this row of faint

and add the day of the month and the year, then take Smith's left hand on another glass strip, and

add name and date and the words "left hand." The strips were now returned to the grooved box,

He often studied his records, examining and poring over them with absorbing interest until far into

the night; but what he found there if he found anythinghe revealed to no one. Sometimes he

copied on paper the involved and delicate pattern left by the ball of the finger, and then vastly

enlarged it with a pantograph so that he could examine its web of curving lines with ease and

One sweltering afternoonit was the first day of July, 1830 he was at work over a set of tangled

account books in his workroom, which looked westward over a stretch of vacant lots, when a

conversation outside disturbed him. It was carried on it yells, which showed that the people

"Oh, I's middlin'; hain't got noth'n' to complain of, I's gwine to come acourt'n you bimeby, Roxy."

"_You_ is, you black mud cat! Yahyahyah! I got somep'n' better to do den 'sociat'n' wid

niggers as black as you is. Is ole Miss Cooper's Nancy done give you de mitten?" Roxy followed

"You's jealous, Roxy, dat's what's de matter wid you, you hussyyahyahyah! Dat's de time I

"Oh, yes, _you_ got me, hain't you. 'Clah to goodness if dat conceit o' yo'n strikes in, Jasper, it

gwine to kill you sho'. If you b'longed to me, I'd sell you down de river 'fo' you git too fur gone. Fust

This idle and aimless jabber went on and on, both parties enjoying the friendly duel and each well

Wilson stepped to the window to observe the combatants; he could not work while their chatter

continued. Over in the vacant lots was Jasper, young, coal black, and of magnificent build, sitting

on a wheelbarrow in the pelting sunat work, supposably, whereas he was in fact only preparing

for it by taking an hour's rest before beginning. In front of Wilson's porch stood Roxy, with a local

handmade baby wagon, in which sat her two chargesone at each end and facing each other.

From Roxy's manner of speech, a stranger would have expected her to be black, but she was not.

Only one sixteenth of her was black, and that sixteenth did not show. She was of majestic form and

stature, her attitudes were imposing and statuesque, and her gestures and movements

distinguished by a noble and stately grace. Her complexion was very fair, with the rosy glow of

vigorous health in her cheeks, her face was full of character and expression, her eyes were brown

and liquid, and she had a heavy suit of fine soft hair which was also brown, but the fact was not

apparent because her head was bound about with a checkered handkerchief and the hair was

concealed under it. Her face was shapely, intelligent, and comelyeven beautiful. She had an

easy, independent carriagewhen she was among her own casteand a high and "sassy" way,

To all intents and purposes Roxy was as white as anybody, but the one sixteenth of her which was

black outvoted the other fifteen parts and made her a Negro. She was a slave, and salable as such.

Her child was thirtyone parts white, and he, too, was a slave, and by a fiction of law and custom a

Negro. He had blue eyes and flaxen curls like his white comrade, but even the father of the white

child was able to tell the children apartlittle as he had commerce with themby their clothes; for

the white babe wore ruffled soft muslin and a coral necklace, while the other wore merely a coarse

The white child's name was Thomas a Becket Driscoll, the other's name was Valet de Chambre: no

surnameslaves hadn't the privilege. Roxana had heard that phrase somewhere, the fine sound of

it had pleased her ear, and as she had supposed it was a name, she loaded it on to her darling. It

Wilson knew Roxy by sight, and when the duel of wits begun to play out, he stepped outside to

gather in a record or two. Jasper went to work energetically, at once, perceiving that his leisure was

"Bless yo' soul, Misto Wilson, it's pow'ful nice o' you to say dat, 'ca'se one of 'em ain't on'y a nigger.

Mighty prime little nigger, _I_ al'ays says, but dat's 'ca'se it's mine, o' course."

"Oh, _I_ kin tell 'em 'part, Misto Wilson, but I bet Marse Percy couldn't, not to save his life."

Wilson chatted along for awhile, and presently got Roxy's fingerprints for his collectionright hand

and lefton a couple of his glass strips; then labeled and dated them, and took the "records" of

Two months later, on the third of September, he took this trio of finger marks again. He liked to

have a "series," two or three "takings" at intervals during the period of childhood, these to be

The next daythat is to say, on the fourth of Septembersomething occurred which profoundly

impressed Roxana. Mr. Driscoll missed another small sum of moneywhich is a way of saying

that this was not a new thing, but had happened before. In truth, it had happened three times

before. Driscoll's patience was exhausted. He was a fairly humane man toward slaves and other

animals; he was an exceedingly humane man toward the erring of his own race. Theft he could not

abide, and plainly there was a thief in his house. Necessarily the thief must be one of his Negros.

Sharp measures must be taken. He called his servants before him. There were three of these,

besides Roxy: a man, a woman, and a boy twelve years old. They were not related. Mr. Driscoll

"You have all been warned before. It has done no good. This time I will teach you a lesson. I will

They all shuddered at the threat, for here they had a good home, and a new one was likely to be a

change for the worse. The denial was general. None had stolen anythingnot money, anywaya

little sugar, or cake, or honey, or something like that, that "Marse Percy wouldn't mind or miss" but

not moneynever a cent of money. They were eloquent in their protestations, but Mr. Driscoll was

The truth was, all were guilty but Roxana; she suspected that the others were guilty, but she did not

know them to be so. She was horrified to think how near she had come to being guilty herself; she

had been saved in the nick of time by a revival in the colored Methodist Church, a fortnight before,

at which time and place she "got religion." The very next day after that gracious experience, while

her change of style was fresh upon her and she was vain of her purified condition, her master left a

couple dollars unprotected on his desk, and she happened upon that temptation when she was

polishing around with a dustrag. She looked at the money awhile with a steady rising resentment,

Then she covered the tempter with a book, and another member of the kitchen cabinet got it. She

made this sacrifice as a matter of religious etiquette; as a thing necessary just now, but by no

means to be wrested into a precedent; no, a week or two would limber up her piety, then she would

be rational again, and the next two dollars that got left out in the cold would find a comforterand

Was she bad? Was she worse than the general run of her race? No. They had an unfair show in

the battle of life, and they held it no sin to take military advantage of the enemyin a small way; in

a small way, but not in a large one. They would smouch provisions from the pantry whenever they

got a chance; or a brass thimble, or a cake of wax, or an emery bag, or a paper of needles, or a

silver spoon, or a dollar bill, or small articles of clothing, or any other property of light value; and so

far were they from considering such reprisals sinful, that they would go to church and shout and

pray the loudest and sincerest with their plunder in their pockets. A farm smokehouse had to be

kept heavily padlocked, or even the colored deacon himself could not resist a ham when

Providence showed him in a dream, or otherwise, where such a thing hung lonesome, and longed

for someone to love. But with a hundred hanging before him, the deacon would not take twothat

is, on the same night. On frosty nights the humane Negro prowler would warm the end of the plank

and put it up under the cold claws of chickens roosting in a tree; a drowsy hen would step on to the

comfortable board, softly clucking her gratitude, and the prowler would dump her into his bag, and

later into his stomach, perfectly sure that in taking this trifle from the man who daily robbed him of

an inestimable treasurehis libertyhe was not committing any sin that God would remember

For the fourth time Mr. Driscoll had said it, and always in the same hard tone. And now he added

"I give you one minute." He took out his watch. "If at the end of that time, you have not confessed, I

It was equivalent to condemning them to hell! No Missouri Negro doubted this. Roxy reeled in her

tracks, and the color vanished out of her face; the others dropped to their knees as if they had been

shot; tears gushed from their eyes, their supplicating hands went up, and three answers came in

"Very good," said the master, putting up his watch, "I will sell you _here_ though you don't deserve

The culprits flung themselves prone, in an ecstasy of gratitude, and kissed his feet, declaring that

they would never forget his goodness and never cease to pray for him as long as they lived. They

were sincere, for like a god he had stretched forth his mighty hand and closed the gates of hell

against them. He knew, himself, that he had done a noble and gracious thing, and was privately

well pleased with his magnanimity; and that night he set the incident down in his diary, so that his

son might read it in after years, and be thereby moved to deeds of gentleness and humanity

Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe

to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.

Percy Driscoll slept well the night he saved his house minions from going down the river, but no

wink of sleep visited Roxy's eyes. A profound terror had taken possession of her. Her child could

grow up and be sold down the river! The thought crazed her with horror. If she dozed and lost

herself for a moment, the next moment she was on her feet flying to her child's cradle to see if it

was still there. Then she would gather it to her heart and pour out her love upon it in a frenzy of

kisses, moaning, crying, and saying, "Dey sha'n't, oh, dey _sha'nt'!'_yo' po' mammy will kill you

Once, when she was tucking him back in its cradle again, the other child nestled in its sleep and

attracted her attention. She went and stood over it a long time communing with herself.

"What has my po' baby done, dat he couldn't have yo' luck? He hain't done nuth'n. God was good

to you; why warn't he good to him? Dey can't sell _you_ down de river. I hates yo' pappy; he hain't

got no heartfor niggers, he hain't, anyways. I hates him, en I could kill him!" She paused awhile,

thinking; then she burst into wild sobbings again, and turned away, saying, "Oh, I got to kill my

chile, dey ain't no yuther waykillin' _him_ wouldn't save de chile fum goin' down de river. Oh, I

got to do it, yo' po' mammy's got to kill you to save you, honey." She gathered her baby to her

bosom now, and began to smother it with caresses. "Mammy's got to kill youhow _kin_ I do it!

But yo' mammy ain't gwine to desert youno, no, _dah_, don't cry she gwine _wid_ you, she

gwine to kill herself too. Come along, honey, come along wid mammy; we gwine to jump in de river,

den troubles o' dis worl' is all overdey don't sell po' niggers down the river over _yonder_."

She stared toward the door, crooning to the child and hushing it; midway she stopped, suddenly.

She had caught sight of her new Sunday gown a cheap curtaincalico thing, a conflagration of

"Hain't ever wore it yet," she said, "en it's just lovely." Then she nodded her head in response to a

pleasant idea, and added, "No, I ain't gwine to be fished out, wid everybody lookin' at me, in dis

She put down the child and made the change. She looked in the glass and was astonished at her

beauty. She resolved to make her death toilet perfect. She took off her handkerchief turban and

dressed her glossy wealth of hair "like white folks"; she added some odds and ends of rather lurid

ribbon and a spray of atrocious artificial flowers; finally she threw over her shoulders a fluffy thing

called a "cloud" in that day, which was of a blazing red complexion. Then she was ready for the

She gathered up her baby once more; but when her eye fell upon its miserably short little gray

towlinen shirt and noted the contrast between its pauper shabbiness and her own volcanic

eruption of infernal splendors, her motherheart was touched, and she was ashamed.

"No, dolling mammy ain't gwine to treat you so. De angels is gwine to 'mire you jist as much as dey

does 'yo mammy. Ain't gwine to have 'em putt'n dey han's up 'fo' dey eyes en sayin' to David and

Goliah en dem yuther prophets, 'Dat chile is dress' to indelicate fo' dis place.'"

By this time she had stripped off the shirt. Now she clothed the naked little creature in one of

Thomas `a Becket's snowy, long baby gowns, with its bright blue bows and dainty flummery of

"Dahnow you's fixed." She propped the child in a chair and stood off to inspect it. Straightway

her eyes begun to widen with astonishment and admiration, and she clapped her hands and cried

out, "Why, it do beat all! I _never_ knowed you was so lovely. Marse Tommy ain't a bit puttiernot

She stepped over and glanced at the other infant;' she flung a glance back at her own; then one

more at the heir of the house. Now a strange light dawned in her eyes, and in a moment she was

lost in thought. She seemed in a trance; when she came out of it, she muttered, "When I 'uz

awashin' 'em in de tub, yistiddy, he own pappy asked me which of 'em was his'n."

She began to move around like one in a dream. She undressed Thomas `a Becket, stripping him of

everything, and put the towlinen shirt on him. She put his coral necklace on her own child's neck.

Then she placed the children side by side, and after earnest inspection she muttered:

"Now who would b'lieve clo'es could do de like o' dat? Dog my cats if it ain't all _I_ kin do to tell t'

"You's young Marse _Tom_ fum dis out, en I got to practice and git used to 'memberin' to call you

dat, honey, or I's gwine to make a mistake sometime en git us bofe into trouble. Dahnow you lay

still en don't fret no mo', Marse Tom. Oh, thank de lord in heaven, you's saved, you's saved! Dey

She put the heir of the house in her own child's unpainted pine cradle, and said, contemplating its

"I's sorry for you, honey; I's sorry, God knows I isbut what _kin_ I do, what _could_ I do? Yo'

pappy would sell him to somebody, sometime, en den he'd go down de river, sho', en I couldn't,

She flung herself on her bed and began to think and toss, toss and think. By and by she sat

"'T ain't no sin_white_ folks has done it! It ain't no sin, glory to goodness it ain't no sin! _Dey's_

She began to muse; she was trying to gather out of her memory the dim particulars of some tale

"Now I's got it; now I 'member. It was dat ole nigger preacher dat tole it, de time he come over here

fum Illinois en preached in de nigger church. He said dey ain't nobody kin save his own self can't

do it by faith, can't do it by works, can't do it no way at all. Free grace is de _on'y_ way, en dat don't

come fum nobody but jis' de Lord; en _he_ kin give it to anybody He please, saint or sinner_he_

don't kyer. He do jis' as He's a mineter. He s'lect out anybody dat suit Him, en put another one in

his place, and make de fust one happy forever en leave t' other one to burn wid Satan. De preacher

said it was jist like dey done in Englan' one time, long time ago. De queen she lef' her baby layin'

aroun' one day, en went out callin'; an one 'o de niggers roun'bout de place dat was 'mos' white,

she come in en see de chile layin' aroun', en tuck en put her own chile's clo's on de queen's chile,

en put de queen's chile's clo'es on her own chile, en den lef' her own chile layin' aroun', en tuck en

toted de queen's chile home to de nigger quarter, en nobody ever foun' it out, en her chile was de

king bimeby, en sole de queen's chile down de river one time when dey had to settle up de estate.

Dah, nowde preacher said it his own self, en it ain't no sin, 'ca'se white folks done it. DEY done

ityes, DEY done it; en not on'y jis' common white folks nuther, but de biggest quality dey is in de

She got lighthearted and happy, and went to the cradles, and spent what was left of the night

"practicing." She would give her own child a light pat and say humbly, "Lay still, Marse Tom," then

give the real Tom a pat and say with severity, "Lay _still_, Chambers! Does you want me to take

As she progressed with her practice, she was surprised to see how steadily and surely the awe

which had kept her tongue reverent and her manner humble toward her young master was

transferring itself to her speech and manner toward the usurper, and how similarly handy she was

becoming in transferring her motherly curtness of speech and peremptoriness of manner to the

She took occasional rests from practicing, and absorbed herself in calculating her chances.

"Dey'll sell dese niggers today fo' stealin' de money, den dey'll buy some mo' dat don't now de

chillenso _dat's_ all right. When I takes de chillen out to git de air, de minute I's roun' de corner

I's gwine to gaum dey mouths all roun' wid jam, den dey can't _nobody_ notice dey's changed. Yes,

"Dey ain't but one man dat I's afeard of, en dat's dat Pudd'nhead Wilson. Dey calls him a

pudd'nhead, en says he's a fool. My lan, dat man ain't no mo' fool den I is! He's de smartes' man in

dis town, lessn' it's Jedge Driscoll or maybe Pem Howard. Blame dat man, he worries me wid dem

ornery glasses o' his'n; _I_ b'lieve he's a witch. But nemmine, I's gwine to happen aroun' dah one o'

dese days en let on dat I reckon he wants to print a chillen's fingers ag'in; en if HE don't notice

dey's changed, I bound dey ain't nobody gwine to notice it, en den I's safe, sho'. But I reckon I'll tote

The new Negros gave Roxy no trouble, of course. The master gave her none, for one of his

speculations was in jeopardy, and his mind was so occupied that he hardly saw the children when

he looked at them, and all Roxy had to do was to get them both into a gale of laughter when he

came about; then their faces were mainly cavities exposing gums, and he was gone again before

Within a few days the fate of the speculation became so dubious that Mr. Percy went away with his

brother, the judge, to see what could be done with it. It was a land speculation as usual, and it had

gotten complicated with a lawsuit. The men were gone seven weeks. Before they got back, Roxy

had paid her visit to Wilson, and was satisfied. Wilson took the fingerprints, labeled them with the

names and with the date October the firstput them carefully away, and continued his chat with

Roxy, who seemed very anxious that he should admire the great advance in flesh and beauty

which the babes had made since he took their fingerprints a month before. He complimented their

improvement to her contentment; and as they were without any disguise of jam or other stain, she

But he didn't. He discovered nothing; and she went home jubilant, and dropped all concern about

Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principal one was, that they escaped teething.

There is this trouble about special providencesnamely, there is so often a doubt as to which

party was intended to be the beneficiary. In the case of the children, the bears, and the prophet, the

bears got more real satisfaction out of the episode than the prophet did, because they got the

This history must henceforth accommodate itself to the change which Roxana has consummated,

and call the real heir "Chambers" and the usurping little slave, "Thomas `a Becket"shortening

"Tom" was a bad baby, from the very beginning of his usurpation. He would cry for nothing; he

would burst into storms of devilish temper without notice, and let go scream after scream and squall

after squall, then climax the thing with "holding his breath" that frightful specialty of the teething

nursling, in the throes of which the creature exhausts its lungs, then is convulsed with noiseless

squirmings and twistings and kickings in the effort to get its breath, while the lips turn blue and the

mouth stands wide and rigid, offering for inspection one wee tooth set in the lower rim of a hoop of

red gums; and when the appalling stillness has endured until one is sure the lost breath will never

return, a nurse comes flying, and dashes water in the child's face, andpresto! the lungs fill, and

instantly discharge a shriek, or a yell, or a howl which bursts the listening ear and surprises the

owner of it into saying words which would not go well with a halo if he had one. The baby Tom

would claw anybody who came within reach of his nails, and pound anybody he could reach with

his rattle. He would scream for water until he got it, and then throw cup and all on the floor and

scream for more. He was indulged in all his caprices, howsoever troublesome and exasperating

they might be; he was allowed to eat anything he wanted, particularly things that would give him the

When he got to be old enough to begin to toddle about and say broken words and get an idea of

what his hands were for, he was a more consummate pest than ever. Roxy got no rest while he

was awake. He would call for anything and everything he saw, simply saying, "Awnt it!" (want it),

which was a command. When it was brought, he said in a frenzy, and motioning it away with his

hands, "Don't awnt it! don't awnt it!" and the moment it was gone he set up frantic yells of "Awnt it!

awnt it!" and Roxy had to give wings to her heels to get that thing back to him again before he could

What he preferred above all other things was the tongs. This was because his "father" had

forbidden him to have them lest he break windows and furniture with them. The moment Roxy's

back was turned he would toddle to the presence of the tongs and say, "Like it!" and cock his eye

to one side or see if Roxy was observed; then, "Awnt it!" and cock his eye again; then, "Hab it!" with

another furtive glace; and finally, "Take it!"and the prize was his. The next moment the heavy

implement was raised aloft; the next, there was a crash and a squall, and the cat was off on three

legs to meet an engagement; Roxy would arrive just as the lamp or a window went to irremediable

Tom got all the petting, Chambers got none. Tom got all the delicacies, Chambers got mush and

milk, and clabber without sugar. In consequence Tom was a sickly child and Chambers wasn't.

Tom was "fractious," as Roxy called it, and overbearing; Chambers was meek and docile.

With all her splendid common sense and practical everyday ability, Roxy was a doting fool of a

mother. She was this toward her child and she was also more than this: by the fiction created by

herself, he was become her master; the necessity of recognizing this relation outwardly and of

perfecting herself in the forms required to express the recognition, had moved her to such diligence

and faithfulness in practicing these forms that this exercise soon concreted itself into habit; it

became automatic and unconscious; then a natural result followed: deceptions intended solely for

others gradually grew practically into selfdeceptions as well; the mock reverence became real

reverence, the mock homage real homage; the little counterfeit rift of separation between

imitationslave and imitationmaster widened and widened, and became an abyss, and a very real

one and on one side of it stood Roxy, the dupe of her own deceptions, and on the other stood

her child, no longer a usurper to her, but her accepted and recognized master. He was her darling,

her master, and her deity all in one, and in her worship of him she forgot who she was and what he

In babyhood Tom cuffed and banged and scratched Chambers unrebuked, and Chambers early

learned that between meekly bearing it and resenting it, the advantage all lay with the former

policy. The few times that his persecutions had moved him beyond control and made him fight back

had cost him very dear at headquarters; not at the hands of Roxy, for if she ever went beyond

scolding him sharply for "forgett'n' who his young marster was," she at least never extended her

punishment beyond a box on the ear. No, Percy Driscoll was the person. He told Chambers that

under no provocation whatever was he privileged to lift his hand against his little master. Chambers

overstepped the line three times, and got three such convincing canings from the man who was his

father and didn't know it, that he took Tom's cruelties in all humility after that, and made no more

Outside the house the two boys were together all through their boyhood. Chambers was strong

beyond his years, and a good fighter; strong because he was coarsely fed and hard worked about

the house, and a good fighter because Tom furnished him plenty of practice on white boys whom

he hated and was afraid of. Chambers was his constant bodyguard, to and from school; he was

present on the playground at recess to protect his charge. He fought himself into such a formidable

reputation, by and by, that Tom could have changed clothes with him, and "ridden in peace," like

He was good at games of skill, too. Tom staked him with marbles to play "keeps" with, and then

took all the winnings away from him. In the winter season Chambers was on hand, in Tom's

wornout clothes, with "holy" red mittens, and "holy" shoes, and pants "holy" at the knees and seat,

to drag a sled up the hill for Tom, warmly clad, to ride down on; but he never got a ride himself. He

built snowmen and snow fortifications under Tom's directions. He was Tom's patient target when

Tom wanted to do some snowballing, but the target couldn't fire back. Chambers carried Tom's

skates to the river and strapped them on him, the trotted around after him on the ice, so as to be on

In summer the pet pastime of the boys of Dawson's Landing was to steal apples, peaches, and

melons from the farmer's fruit wagons mainly on account of the risk they ran of getting their

heads laid open with the butt of the farmer's whip. Tom was a distinguished adept at these

theftsby proxy. Chambers did his stealing, and got the peach stones, apple cores, and melon

Tom always made Chambers go in swimming with him, and stay by him as a protection. When Tom

had had enough, he would slip out and tie knots in Chamber's shirt, dip the knots in the water and

make them hard to undo, then dress himself and sit by and laugh while the naked shiverer tugged

Tom did his humble comrade these various ill turns partly out of native viciousness, and partly

because he hated him for his superiorities of physique and pluck, and for his manifold cleverness.

Tom couldn't dive, for it gave him splitting headaches. Chambers could dive without inconvenience,

and was fond of doing it. He excited so much admiration, one day, among a crowd of white boys,

by throwing back somersaults from the stern of a canoe, that it wearies Tom's spirit, and at last he

shoved the canoe underneath Chambers while he was in the airso he came down on his head in

the canoe bottom; and while he lay unconscious, several of Tom's ancient adversaries saw that

their longdesired opportunity was come, and they gave the false heir such a drubbing that with

When the boys was fifteen and upward, Tom was "showing off" in the river one day, when he was

taken with a cramp, and shouted for help. It was a common trick with the boysparticularly if a

stranger was presentto pretend a cramp and howl for help; then when the stranger came tearing

hand over hand to the rescue, the howler would go on struggling and howling till he was close at

hand, then replace the howl with a sarcastic smile and swim blandly away, while the town boys

assailed the dupe with a volley of jeers and laughter. Tom had never tried this joke as yet, but was

supposed to be trying it now, so the boys held warily back; but Chambers believed his master was

in earnest; therefore, he swam out, and arrived in time, unfortunately, and saved his life.

This was the last feather. Tom had managed to endure everything else, but to have to remain

publicly and permanently under such an obligation as this to a nigger, and to this nigger of all

niggersthis was too much. He heaped insults upon Chambers for "pretending" to think he was in

earnest in calling for help, and said that anybody but a blockheaded nigger would have known he

Tom's enemies were in strong force here, so they came out with their opinions quite freely. The

laughed at him, and called him coward, liar, sneak, and other sorts of pet names, and told him they

meant to call Chambers by a new name after this, and make it common in the town"Tom

Driscoll's nigger pappy,"to signify that he had had a second birth into this life, and that Chambers

was the author of his new being. Tom grew frantic under these taunts, and shouted:

"Knock their heads off, Chambers! Knock their heads off! What do you stand there with your hands

Tom sprang at him and drove his pocketknife into him two or three times before the boys could

snatch him away and give the wounded lad a chance to escape. He was considerably hurt, but not

seriously. If the blade had been a little longer, his career would have ended there.

Tom had long ago taught Roxy "her place." It had been many a day now since she had ventured a

caress or a fondling epithet in his quarter. Such things, from a "nigger," were repulsive to him, and

she had been warned to keep her distance and remember who she was. She saw her darling

gradually cease from being her son, she saw THAT detail perish utterly; all that was left was

mastermaster, pure and simple, and it was not a gentle mastership, either. She saw herself sink

from the sublime height of motherhood to the somber depths of unmodified slavery, the abyss of

separation between her and her boy was complete. She was merely his chattel now, his

convenience, his dog, his cringing and helpless slave, the humble and unresisting victim of his

Sometimes she could not go to sleep, even when worn out with fatigue, because her rage boiled so

high over the day's experiences with her boy. She would mumble and mutter to herself:

"He struck me en I warn't no way to blamestruck me in de face, right before folks. En he's al'ays

callin' me nigger wench, en hussy, en all dem mean names, when I's doin' de very bes' I kin. Oh,

Lord, I done so much for himI lif' him away up to what he is en dis is what I git for it."

Sometimes when some outrage of peculiar offensiveness stung her to the heart, she would plan

schemes of vengeance and revel in the fancied spectacle of his exposure to the world as an

imposter and a slave; but in the midst of these joys fear would strike her; she had made him too

strong; she could prove nothing, andheavens, she might get sold down the river for her pains! So

her schemes always went for nothing, and she laid them aside in impotent rage against the fates,

and against herself for playing the fool on that fatal September day in not providing herself with a

witness for use in the day when such a thing might be needed for the appeasing of her

And yet the moment Tom happened to be good to her, and kind and this occurred every now

and thenall her sore places were healed, and she was happy; happy and proud, for this was her

son, her nigger son, lording it among the whites and securely avenging their crimes against her

There were two grand funerals in Dawson's Landing that fallthe fall of 1845. One was that of

On his deathbed Driscoll set Roxy free and delivered his idolized ostensible son solemnly into the

keeping of his brother, the judge, and his wife. Those childless people were glad to get him.

Judge Driscoll had gone privately to his brother, a month before, and bought Chambers. He had

heard that Tom had been trying to get his father to sell the boy down the river, and he wanted to

prevent the scandalfor public sentiment did not approve of that way of treating family servants for

Percy Driscoll had worn himself out in trying to save his great speculative landed estate, and had

died without succeeding. He was hardly in his grave before the boom collapsed and left his envied

young devil of an heir a pauper. But that was nothing; his uncle told him he should be his heir and

Roxy had no home now; so she resolved to go around and say goodby to her friends and then

clear out and see the worldthat is to say, she would go chambermaiding on a steamboat, the

Her last call was on the black giant, Jasper. She found him chopping Pudd'nhead Wilson's winter

Wilson was chatting with him when Roxy arrived. He asked her how she could bear to go off

chambermaiding and leave her boys; and chaffingly offered to copy off a series of their fingerprints,

reaching up to their twelfth year, for her to remember them by; but she sobered in a moment,

wondering if he suspected anything; then she said she believed she didn't want them. Wilson said

to himself, "The drop of black blood in her is superstitious; she thinks there's some devilry, some

witch business about my glass mystery somewhere; she used to come here with an old horseshoe

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with

Remark of Dr. Baldwin's, concerning upstarts: We don't care to eat toadstools that think they are

Mrs. York Driscoll enjoyed two years of bliss with that prize, Tombliss that was troubled a little at

times, it is true, but bliss nevertheless; then she died, and her husband and his childless sister,

Mrs. Pratt, continued this blissbusiness at the old stand. Tom was petted and indulged and

spoiled to his entire contentor nearly that. This went on till he was nineteen, then he was sent to

Yale. He went handsomely equipped with "conditions," but otherwise he was not an object of

distinction there. He remained at Yale two years, and then threw up the struggle. He came home

with his manners a good deal improved; he had lost his surliness and brusqueness, and was rather

pleasantly soft and smooth, now; he was furtively, and sometimes openly, ironical of speech, and

given to gently touching people on the raw, but he did it with a goodnatured semiconscious air

that carried it off safely, and kept him from getting into trouble. He was as indolent as ever and

showed no very strenuous desire to hunt up an occupation. People argued from this that he

preferred to be supported by his uncle until his uncle's shoes should become vacant. He brought

back one or two new habits with him, one of which he rather openly practicedtipplingbut

concealed another, which was gambling. It would not do to gamble where his uncle could hear of it;

Tom's Eastern polish was not popular among the young people. They could have endured it,

perhaps, if Tom had stopped there; but he wore gloves, and that they couldn't stand, and wouldn't;

so he was mainly without society. He brought home with him a suit of clothes of such exquisite

style and cut in fashion Eastern fashion, city fashionthat it filled everybody with anguish and

was regarded as a peculiarly wanton affront. He enjoyed the feeling which he was exciting, and

paraded the town serene and happy all day; but the young fellows set a tailor to work that night,

and when Tom started out on his parade next morning, he found the old deformed Negro bell ringer

straddling along in his wake tricked out in a flamboyant curtaincalico exaggeration of his finery,

Tom surrendered, and after that clothed himself in the local fashion. But the dull country town was

tiresome to him, since his acquaintanceship with livelier regions, and it grew daily more and more

so. He began to make little trips to St. Louis for refreshment. There he found companionship to suit

him, and pleasures to his taste, along with more freedom, in some particulars, than he could have

at home. So, during the next two years, his visits to the city grew in frequency and his tarryings

He was getting into deep waters. He was taking chances, privately, which might get him into trouble

Judge Driscoll had retired from the bench and from all business activities in 1850, and had now

been comfortably idle three years. He was president of the Freethinkers' Society, and Pudd'nhead

Wilson was the other member. The society's weekly discussions were now the old lawyer's main

interest in life. Pudd'nhead was still toiling in obscurity at the bottom of the ladder, under the blight

of that unlucky remark which he had let fall twentythree years before about the dog.

Judge Driscoll was his friend, and claimed that he had a mind above the average, but that was

regarded as one of the judge's whims, and it failed to modify the public opinion. Or rather, that was

one of the reason why it failed, but there was another and better one. If the judge had stopped with

bare assertion, it would have had a good deal of effect; but he made the mistake of trying to prove

his position. For some years Wilson had been privately at work on a whimsical almanac, for his

amusementa calendar, with a little dab of ostensible philosophy, usually in ironical form,

appended to each date; and the judge thought that these quips and fancies of Wilson's were neatly

turned and cute; so he carried a handful of them around one day, and read them to some of the

chief citizens. But irony was not for those people; their mental vision was not focused for it. They

read those playful trifles in the solidest terms, and decided without hesitancy that if there had ever

been any doubt that Dave Wilson was a pudd'nhead which there hadn'tthis revelation

removed that doubt for good and all. That is just the way in this world; an enemy can partly ruin a

man, but it takes a goodnatured injudicious friend to complete the thing and make it perfect. After

this the judge felt tenderer than ever toward Wilson, and surer than ever that his calendar had

Judge Driscoll could be a freethinker and still hold his place in society because he was the person

of most consequence to the community, and therefore could venture to go his own way and follow

out his own notions. The other member of his pet organization was allowed the like liberty because

he was a cipher in the estimation of the public, and nobody attached any importance to what he

thought or did. He was liked, he was welcome enough all around, but he simply didn't count for

The Widow Cooperaffectionately called "Aunt Patsy" by everybody lived in a snug and comely

cottage with her daughter Rowena, who was nineteen, romantic, amiable, and very pretty, but

otherwise of no consequence. Rowena had a couple of young brothers also of no consequence.

The widow had a large spare room, which she let to a lodger, with board, when she could find one,

but this room had been empty for a year now, to her sorrow. Her income was only sufficient for the

family support, and she needed the lodging money for trifling luxuries. But now, at last, on a flaming

June day, she found herself happy; her tedious wait was ended; her yearworn advertisement had

been answered; and not by a village applicant, no, no!this letter was from away off yonder in the

dim great world to the North; it was from St. Louis. She sat on her porch gazing out with unseeing

eyes upon the shining reaches of the mighty Mississippi, her thoughts steeped in her good fortune.

Indeed it was specially good fortune, for she was to have two lodgers instead of one.

She had read the letter to the family, and Rowena had danced away to see to the cleaning and

airing of the room by the slave woman, Nancy, and the boys had rushed abroad in the town to

spread the great news, for it was a matter of public interest, and the public would wonder and not

be pleased if not informed. Presently Rowena returned, all ablush with joyous excitement, and

HONORED MADAM: My brother and I have seen your advertisement, by chance, and beg leave to

take the room you offer. We are twentyfour years of age and twins. We are Italians by birth, but

have lived long in the various countries of Europe, and several years in the United States. Our

names are Luigi and Angelo Capello. You desire but one guest; but, dear madam, if you will allow

"Italians! How romantic! Just think, Mathere's never been one in this town, and everybody will be

"Oh, indeed they will. The whole town will be on its head! Thinkthey've been in Europe and

everywhere! There's never been a traveler in this town before, Ma, I shouldn't wonder if they've

"Yes, that's of course. LuigiAngelo. They're lovely names; and so grand and foreignnot like

Jones and Robinson and such. Thursday they are coming, and this is only Tuesday; it's a cruel

long time to wait. Here comes Judge Driscoll in at the gate. He's heard about it. I'll go and open the

The judge was full of congratulations and curiosity. The letter was read and discussed. Soon

Justice Robinson arrived with more congratulations, and there was a new reading and a new

discussion. This was the beginning. Neighbor after neighbor, of both sexes, followed, and the

procession drifted in and out all day and evening and all Wednesday and Thursday. The letter was

read and reread until it was nearly worn out; everybody admired its courtly and gracious tone, and

smooth and practiced style, everybody was sympathetic and excited, and the Coopers were

The boats were very uncertain in low water in these primitive times. This time the Thursday boat

had not arrived at ten at night so the people had waited at the landing all day for nothing; they

were driven to their homes by a heavy storm without having had a view of the illustrious foreigners.

Eleven o'clock came; and the Cooper house was the only one in the town that still had lights

burning. The rain and thunder were booming yet, and the anxious family were still waiting, still

hoping. At last there was a knock at the door, and the family jumped to open it. Two Negro men

entered, each carrying a trunk, and proceeded upstairs toward the guest room. Then entered the

twinsthe handsomest, the best dressed, the most distinguishedlooking pair of young fellows the

West had ever seen. One was a little fairer than the other, but otherwise they were exact

Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

At breakfast in the morning, the twins' charm of manner and easy and polished bearing made

speedy conquest of the family's good graces. All constraint and formality quickly disappeared, and

the friendliest feeling succeeded. Aunt Patsy called them by their Christian names almost from the

beginning. She was full of the keenest curiosity about them, and showed it; they responded by

talking about themselves, which pleased her greatly. It presently appeared that in their early youth

they had known poverty and hardship. As the talk wandered along, the old lady watched for the

right place to drop in a question or two concerning that matter, and when she found it, she said to

the blond twin, who was now doing the biographies in his turn while the brunette one rested:

"If it ain't asking what I ought not to ask, Mr. Angelo, how did you come to be so friendless and in

"Oh, we don't mind it at all, madam; in our case it was merely misfortune, and nobody's fault. Our

parents were well to do, there in Italy, and we were their only child. We were of the old Florentine

nobility" Rowena's heart gave a great bound, her nostrils expanded, and a fine light played in her

eyes"and when the war broke out, my father was on the losing side and had to fly for his life. His

estates were confiscated, his personal property seized, and there we were, in Germany, strangers,

friendless, and in fact paupers. My brother and I were ten years old, and well educated for that age,

very studious, very fond of our books, and well grounded in the German, French, Spanish, and

English languages. Also, we were marvelous musical prodigiesif you will allow me to say it, it

"Our father survived his misfortunes only a month, our mother soon followed him, and we were

alone in the world. Our parents could have made themselves comfortable by exhibiting us as a

show, and they had many and large offers; but the thought revolted their pride, and they said they

would starve and die first. But what they wouldn't consent to do, we had to do without the formality

of consent. We were seized for the debts occasioned by their illness and their funerals, and placed

among the attractions of a cheap museum in Berlin to earn the liquidation money. It took us two

years to get out of that slavery. We traveled all about Germany, receiving no wages, and not even

"Well, madam, the rest is not of much consequence. When we escaped from that slavery at twelve

years of age, we were in some respects men. Experience had taught us some valuable things;

among others, how to take care of ourselves, how to avoid and defeat sharks and sharpers, and

how to conduct our own business for our own profit and without other people's help. We traveled

everywhereyears and years picking up smatterings of strange tongues, familiarizing ourselves

with strange sights and strange customs, accumulating an education of a wide and varied and

curious sort. It was a pleasant life. We went to Veniceto London, Paris, Russia, India, China,

At this point Nancy, the slave woman, thrust her head in at the door and exclaimed:

"Ole Missus, de house of plum' jam full o' people, en dey's jes aspi'lin' to see de gen'lemen!" She

indicated the twins with a nod of her head, and tucked it back out of sight again.

It was a proud occasion for the widow, and she promised herself high satisfaction in showing off

her fine foreign birds before her neighbors and friendssimple folk who had hardly ever seen a

foreigner of any kind, and never one of any distinction or style. Yet her feeling was moderate

indeed when contrasted with Rowena's. Rowena was in the clouds, she walked on air; this was to

be the greatest day, the most romantic episode in the colorless history of that dull country town.

She was to be familiarly near the source of its glory and feel the full flood of it pour over her and

The party moved along the hall, the twins in advance, and entered the open parlor door, whence

issued a low hum of conversation. The twins took a position near the door, the widow stood at

Luigi's side, Rowena stood beside Angelo, and the marchpast and the introductions began. The

widow was all smiles and contentment. She received the procession and passed it on to Rowena.

"Good morning, Brother HigginsCount Luigi Capello, Mr. Higgins" handshake, followed by a

devouring stare and "I'm glad to see ye," on the part of Higgins, and a courteous inclination of the

"Good morning, Mr. Higginspresent you to Count Angelo Capello." Handshake, admiring stare,

None of these visitors was at ease, but, being honest people, they didn't pretend to be. None of

them had ever seen a person bearing a title of nobility before, and none had been expecting to see

one now, consequently the title came upon them as a kind of piledriving surprise and caught them

unprepared. A few tried to rise to the emergency, and got out an awkward "My lord," or "Your

lordship," or something of that sort, but the great majority were overwhelmed by the unaccustomed

word and its dim and awful associations with gilded courts and stately ceremony and anointed

kingship, so they only fumbled through the handshake and passed on, speechless. Now and then,

as happens at all receptions everywhere, a more than ordinary friendly soul blocked the procession

and kept it waiting while he inquired how the brothers liked the village, and how long they were

going to stay, and if their family was well, and dragged in the weather, and hoped it would get

cooler soon, and all that sort of thing, so as to be able to say, when he got home, "I had quite a

long talk with them"; but nobody did or said anything of a regrettable kind, and so the great affair

General conversation followed, and the twins drifted about from group to group, talking easily and

fluently and winning approval, compelling admiration and achieving favor from all. The widow

followed their conquering march with a proud eye, and every now and then Rowena said to herself

There were no idle moments for mother or daughter. Eager inquiries concerning the twins were

pouring into their enchanted ears all the time; each was the constant center of a group of

breathless listeners; each recognized that she knew now for the first time the real meaning of that

great word Glory, and perceived the stupendous value of it, and understand why men in all ages

had been willing to throw away meaner happiness, treasure, life itself, to get a taste of its sublime

When Rowena had at last done all her duty by the people in the parlor, she went upstairs to satisfy

the longings of an overflow meeting there, for the parlor was not big enough to hold all the comers.

Again she was besieged by eager questioners, and again she swam in sunset seas of glory. When

the forenoon was nearly gone, she recognized with a pang that this most splendid episode of her

life was almost over, that nothing could prolong it, that nothing quite its equal could ever fall to her

fortune again. But never mind, it was sufficient unto itself, the grand occasion had moved on an

ascending scale from the start, and was a noble and memorable success. If the twins could but do

some crowning act now to climax it, something usual, something startling, something to

concentrate upon themselves the company's loftiest admiration, something in the nature of an

Here a prodigious slambanging broke out below, and everybody rushed down to see. It was the

twins, knocking out a classic fourhanded piece on the piano in great style. Rowena was

The young strangers were kept long at the piano. The villagers were astonished and enchanted

with the magnificence of their performance, and could not bear to have them stop. All the music

that they had ever heard before seemed spiritless prenticework and barren of grace and charm

when compared with these intoxicating floods of melodious sound. They realized that for once in

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.

The company broke up reluctantly, and drifted toward their several homes, chatting with vivacity

and all agreeing that it would be many a long day before Dawson's Landing would see the equal of

this one again. The twins had accepted several invitations while the reception was in progress, and

had also volunteered to play some duets at an amateur entertainment for the benefit of a local

charity. Society was eager to receive them to its bosom. Judge Driscoll had the good fortune to

secure them for an immediate drive, and to be the first to display them in public. They entered his

buggy with him and were paraded down the main street, everybody flocking to the windows and

The judge showed the strangers the new graveyard, and the jail, and where the richest man lived,

and the Freemasons' hall, and the Methodist church, and the Presbyterian church, and where the

Baptist church was going to be when they got some money to build it with, and showed them the

town hall and the slaughterhouse, and got out of the independent fire company in uniform and had

them put out an imaginary fire; then he let them inspect the muskets of the militia company, and

poured out an exhaustless stream of enthusiasm over all these splendors, and seemed very well

satisfied with the responses he got, for the twins admired his admiration, and paid him back the

best they could, though they could have done better if some fifteen or sixteen hundred thousand

previous experiences of this sort in various countries had not already rubbed off a considerable part

The judge laid himself out hospitality to make them have a good time, and if there was a defect

anywhere, it was not his fault. He told them a good many humorous anecdotes, and always forgot

the nub, but they were always able to furnish it, for these yarns were of a pretty early vintage, and

they had had many a rejuvenating pull at them before. And he told them all about his several

dignities, and how he had held this and that and the other place of honor or profit, and had once

been to the legislature, and was now president of the Society of Freethinkers. He said the society

had been in existence four years, and already had two members, and was firmly established. He

would call for the brothers in the evening, if they would like to attend a meeting of it.

Accordingly he called for them, and on the way he told them all about Pudd'nhead Wilson, in order

that they might get a favorable impression of him in advance and be prepared to like him. This

scheme succeeded the favorable impression was achieved. Later it was confirmed and solidified

when Wilson proposed that out of courtesy to the strangers the usual topics be put aside and the

hour be devoted to conversation upon ordinary subjects and the cultivation of friendly relations and

The hour passed quickly away in lively talk, and when it was ended, the lonesome and neglected

Wilson was richer by two friends than he had been when it began. He invited the twins to look in at

his lodgings presently, after disposing of an intervening engagement, and they accepted with

Toward the middle of the evening, they found themselves on the road to his house. Pudd'nhead

was at home waiting for them and putting in his time puzzling over a thing which had come under

his notice that morning. The matter was this: He happened to be up very early at dawn, in fact;

and he crossed the hall, which divided his cottage through the center, and entered a room to get

something there. The window of the room had no curtains, for that side of the house had long been

unoccupied, and through this window he caught sight of something which surprised and interested

him. It was a young woman a young woman where properly no young woman belonged; for she

was in Judge Driscoll's house, and in the bedroom over the judge's private study or sitting room.

This was young Tom Driscoll's bedroom. He and the judge, the judge's widowed sister Mrs. Pratt,

and three Negro servants were the only people who belonged in the house. Who, then, might this

young lady be? The two houses were separated by an ordinary yard, with a low fence running back

through its middle from the street in front to the lane in the rear. The distance was not great, and

Wilson was able to see the girl very well, the window shades of the room she was in being up, and

the window also. The girl had on a neat and trim summer dress, patterned in broad stripes of pink

and white, and her bonnet was equipped with a pink veil. She was practicing steps, gaits and

attitudes, apparently; she was doing the thing gracefully, and was very much absorbed in her work.

Wilson had quickly chosen a position from which he could watch the girl without running much risk

of being seen by her, and he remained there hoping she would raise her veil and betray her face.

But she disappointed him. After a matter of twenty minutes she disappeared and although he

Toward noon he dropped in at the judge's and talked with Mrs. Pratt about the great event of the

day, the levee of the distinguished foreigners at Aunt Patsy Cooper's. He asked after her nephew

Tom, and she said he was on his way home and that she was expecting him to arrive a little before

night, and added that she and the judge were gratified to gather from his letters that he was

conducting himself very nicely and creditablyat which Wilson winked to himself privately. Wilson

did not ask if there was a newcomer in the house, but he asked questions that would have brought

lightthrowing answers as to that matter if Mrs. Pratt had had any light to throw; so he went away

satisfied that he knew of things that were going on in her house of which she herself was not

He was now awaiting for the twins, and still puzzling over the problem of who that girl might be, and

The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will

Consider well the proportions of things. It is better to be a young June bug than an old bird of

At the time she was set free and went away chambermaiding, she was thirtyfive. She got a berth

as second chambermaid on a Cincinnati boat in the New Orleans trade, the _Grand Mogul_. A

couple of trips made her wonted and easygoing at the work, and infatuated her with the stir and

adventure and independence of steamboat life. Then she was promoted and become head

chambermaid. She was a favorite with the officers, and exceedingly proud of their joking and

During eight years she served three parts of the year on that boat, and the winters on a Vicksburg

packet. But now for two months, she had had rheumatism in her arms, and was obliged to let the

washtub alone. So she resigned. But she was well fixed rich, as she would have described it; for

she had lived a steady life, and had banked four dollars every month in New Orleans as a provision

for her old age. She said in the start that she had "put shoes on one bar'footed nigger to tromple on

her with," and that one mistake like that was enough; she would be independent of the human race

thenceforth forevermore if hard work and economy could accomplish it. When the boat touched the

levee at New Orleans she bade goodby to her comrades on the _Grand Mogul_ and moved her

But she was back in a hour. The bank had gone to smash and carried her four hundred dollars with

it. She was a pauper and homeless. Also disabled bodily, at least for the present. The officers were

full of sympathy for her in her trouble, and made up a little purse for her. She resolved to go to her

birthplace; she had friends there among the Negros, and the unfortunate always help the

unfortunate, she was well aware of that; those lowly comrades of her youth would not let her starve.

She took the little local packet at Cairo, and now she was on the homestretch. Time had worn away

her bitterness against her son, and she was able to think of him with serenity. She put the vile side

of him out of her mind, and dwelt only on recollections of his occasional acts of kindness to her.

She gilded and otherwise decorated these, and made them very pleasant to contemplate. She

began to long to see him. She would go and fawn upon him slavelikefor this would have to be

her attitude, of courseand maybe she would find that time had modified him, and that he would

be glad to see his longforgotten old nurse and treat her gently. That would be lovely; that would

Her poverty! That thought inspired her to add another castle to her dream: maybe he would give

her a trifle now and thenmaybe a dollar, once a month, say; any little thing like that would help,

By the time she reached Dawson's Landing, she was her old self again; her blues were gone, she

was in high feather. She would get along, surely; there were many kitchens where the servants

would share their meals with her, and also steal sugar and apples and other dainties for her to

carry homeor give her a chance to pilfer them herself, which would answer just as well. And

there was the church. She was a more rabid and devoted Methodist than ever, and her piety was

no sham, but was strong and sincere. Yes, with plenty of creature comforts and her old place in the

amen corner in her possession again, she would be perfectly happy and at peace thenceforward to

She went to Judge Driscoll's kitchen first of all. She was received there in great form and with vast

enthusiasm. Her wonderful travels, and the strange countries she had seen, and the adventures

she had had, made her a marvel and a heroine of romance. The Negros hung enchanted upon a

great story of her experiences, interrupting her all along with eager questions, with laughter,

exclamations of delight, and expressions of applause; and she was obliged to confess to herself

that if there was anything better in this world than steamboating, it was the glory to be got by telling

about it. The audience loaded her stomach with their dinners, and then stole the pantry bare to load

Tom was in St. Louis. The servants said he had spent the best part of his time there during the

previous two years. Roxy came every day, and had many talks about the family and its affairs.

"De fac' is, ole marster kin git along better when young marster's away den he kin when he's in de

"'Clah to goodness I ain't, Mammy; Marse Tom tole me so his own self. But nemmine, 'tain't

"Well, I's gwine to tell you, if you gimme a chanst, Mammy. De reason it ain't enough is 'ca'se

"Ole marster found it out, 'ca'se he had to pay two hundred dollahs for Marse Tom's gamblin' debts,

"Twohund'd dollahs! Why, what is you talkin' 'bout? Two hund'ddollahs. Sakes alive, it's

'mos' enough to buy a tol'able good secondhand nigger wid. En you ain't lyin', honey? You wouldn't

"It's God's own truth, jes as I tell youtwo hund'd dollahs I wisht I may never stir outen my

tracks if it ain't so. En, oh, my lan', ole Marse was jes ahoppin'! He was b'ilin' mad, I tell you! He

"Bu'sted de will! He wouldn't _ever_ treat him so! Take it back, you mis'able imitation nigger dat I

Roxy's pet castlean occasional dollar from Tom's pocket was tumbling to ruin before her eyes.

She could not abide such a disaster as that; she couldn't endure the thought of it. Her remark

"Yahyahyah! Jes listen to dat! If I's imitation, what is you? Bofe of us is imitation _white_dat's

what we isen pow'ful good imitation, too. Yahyahyah! We don't 'mount to noth'n as imitation

"Shet up yo' foolin', 'fo' I knock you side de head, en tell me 'bout de will. Tell me 'tain't

"Well, _'tain't_'ca'se dey's a new one made, en Marse Tom's all right ag'in. But what is you in

sich a sweat 'bout it for, Mammy? 'Tain't none o' your business I don't reckon."

"'Tain't none o' my business? Whose business is it den, I'd like to know? Wuz I his mother tell he

was fifteen years old, or wusn't I? you answer me dat. En you speck I could see him turned out

po' and ornery on de worl' en never care noth'n' 'bout it? I reckon if you'd ever be'n a mother yo'self,

"Well, den, ole Marse forgive him en fixed up de will ag'in do dat satisfy you?"

Yes, she was satisfied now, and quite happy and sentimental over it. She kept coming daily, and at

last she was told that Tom had come home. She began to tremble with emotion, and straightway

sent to beg him to let his "po' ole nigger Mammy have jes one sight of him en die for joy."

Tom was stretched at his lazy ease on a sofa when Chambers brought the petition. Time had not

modified his ancient detestation of the humble drudge and protector of his boyhood; it was still

bitter and uncompromising. He sat up and bent a severe gaze upon the face of the young fellow

whose name he was unconsciously using and whose family rights he was enjoying. He maintained

the gaze until the victim of it had become satisfactorily pallid with terror, then he said:

"Who gave you permission to come and disturb me with the social attentions of niggers?"

Tom had risen. The other young man was trembling now, visibly. He saw what was coming, and

bent his head sideways, and put up his left arm to shield it. Tom rained cuffs upon the head and its

shield, saying no word: the victim received each blow with a beseeching, "Please, Marse

followed behind with one, two, three solid kicks. The last one helped the purewhite slave over the

doorsill, and he limped away mopping his eyes with his old, ragged sleeve. Tom shouted after

Then he flung himself panting on the sofa again, and rasped out the remark, "He arrived just at the

right moment; I was full to the brim with bitter thinkings, and nobody to take it out of. How refreshing

Tom's mother entered now, closing the door behind her, and approached her son with all the

wheedling and supplication servilities that fear and interest can impart to the words and attitudes of

the born slave. She stopped a yard from her boy and made two or three admiring exclamations

over his manly stature and general handsomeness, and Tom put an arm under his head and

"My lan', how you is growed, honey! 'Clah to goodness, I wouldn't aknowed you, Marse Tom!

'Deed I wouldn't! Look at me good; does you 'member old Roxy? Does you know yo' old nigger

"You heah dat? Jes the same old Marse Tom, al'ays so gay and funnin' wid de ole mammy. I'uz jes

This was a bitter disappointment. Roxy had for so many days nourished and fondled and petted her

notion that Tom would be glad to see his old nurse, and would make her proud and happy to the

marrow with a cordial word or two, that it took two rebuffs to convince her that he was not funning,

and that her beautiful dream was a fond and foolish variety, a shabby and pitiful mistake. She was

hurt to the heart, and so ashamed that for a moment she did not quite know what to do or how to

act. Then her breast began to heave, the tears came, and in her forlornness she was moved to try

that other dream of hers an appeal to her boy's charity; and so, upon the impulse, and without

"Oh, Marse Tom, de po' ole mammy is in sich hard luck dese days; en she's kinder crippled in de

Tom was on his feet so suddenly that the supplicant was startled into a jump herself.

"A dollar!give you a dollar! I've a notion to strangle you! Is _that_ your errand here? Clear out!

Roxy backed slowly toward the door. When she was halfway she stopped, and said mournfully:

"Marse Tom, I nussed you when you was a little baby, en I raised you all by myself tell you was

'most a young man; en now you is young en rich, en I is po' en gitt'n ole, en I come heah b'leavin'

dat you would he'p de ole mammy 'long down de little road dat's lef' 'twix' her en de grave, en"

Tom relished this tune less than any that he preceded it, for it began to wake up a sort of echo in

his conscience; so he interrupted and said with decision, though without asperity, that he was not in

Roxy's head was down, in an attitude of humility. But now the fires of her old wrongs flamed up in

her breast and began to burn fiercely. She raised her head slowly, till it was well up, and at the

same time her great frame unconsciously assumed an erect and masterful attitude, with all the

majesty and grace of her vanished youth in it. She raised her finger and punctuated with it.

"You has said de word. You has had yo' chance, en you has trompled it under yo' foot. When you

A cold chill went to Tom's heart, he didn't know why; for he did not reflect that such words, from

such an incongruous source, and so solemnly delivered, could not easily fail of that effect.

"_You'll_ give me a chance_you_! Perhaps I'd better get down on my knees now! But in case I

"Dis is what is gwine to happen, I's gwine as straight to yo' uncle as I kin walk, en tell him every las'

Tom's cheek blenched, and she saw it. Disturbing thoughts began to chase each other through his

head. "How can she know? And yet she must have found outshe looks it. I've had the will back

only three months, and am already deep in debt again, and moving heaven and earth to save

myself from exposure and destruction, with a reasonably fair show of getting the thing covered up if

I'm let alone, and now this fiend has gone and found me out somehow or other. I wonder how much

she knows? Oh, oh, oh, it's enough to break a body's heart! But I've got to humor herthere's no

Then he worked up a rather sickly sample of a gay laugh and a hollow chipperness of manner, and

"Well, well, Roxy dear, old friends like you and me mustn't quarrel. Here's your dollarnow tell me

He held out the wildcat bill; she stood as she was, and made no movement. It was her turn to scorn

persuasive foolery now, and she did not waste it. She said, with a grim implacability in voice and

manner which made Tom almost realize that even a former slave can remember for ten minutes

insults and injuries returned for compliments and flatteries received, and can also enjoy taking

"What does I know? I'll tell you what I knows, I knows enough to bu'st dat will to flindersen more,

Roxy laughed a mocking laugh, and said scoffingly, with a toss of her head, and her hands on her

"Yes!oh, I reckon! _co'se_ you'd like to knowwid yo' po' little ole rag dollah. What you reckon

I's gwine to tell _you_ for? you ain't got no money. I's gwine to tell yo' uncleen I'll do it dis

She swung herself around disdainfully, and started away. Tom was in a panic. He seized her skirts,

"I tole you dat de next time I give you a chance you'd git down on yo' knees en beg for it."

"Oh, Roxy, you wouldn't require your young master to do such a horrible thing. You can't mean it."

"I'll let you know mighty quick whether I means it or not! You call me names, en as good as spit on

me when I comes here, po' en ornery en 'umble, to praise you for bein' growed up so fine and

handsome, en tell you how I used to nuss you en tend you en watch you when you 'uz sick en

hadn't no mother but me in de whole worl', en beg you to give de po' ole nigger a dollah for to get

her som'n' to eat, en you call me names_names_, dad blame you! Yassir, I gives you jes one

of unatoned insult and outrage looked down on him and seemed to drink in deep draughts of

"Fine nice young white gen'l'man kneelin' down to a nigger wench! I's wanted to see dat jes once

"Now, Roxy, don't punish me any more. I deserved what I've got, but be good and let me off with

"Yes, I bet you will; en you won't stop dah, nuther. But I ain't gwine to tell you heah"

"Well, den, you come to de ha'nted house 'bout ten or 'leven tonight, en climb up de ladder, 'ca'se

de sta'rsteps is broke down, en you'll find me. I's aroostin' in de ha'nted house 'ca'se I can't 'ford to

roos' nowher's else." She started toward the door, but stopped and said, "Gimme de dollah bill!" He

gave it to her. She examined it and said, "H'mlike enough de bank's bu'sted." She started again,

He ran to his room overhead and brought down a bottle which was twothirds full. She tilted it up

and took a drink. Her eyes sparkled with satisfaction, and she tucked the bottle under her shawl,

Tom humbly held the door for her, and she marched out as grim and erect as a grenadier.

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person

It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition. There was once a man who, not being able to find

any other fault with his coal, complained that there were too many prehistoric toads in it.

Tom flung himself on the sofa, and put his throbbing head in his hands, and rested his elbows on

"I've knelt to a nigger wench!" he muttered. "I thought I had struck the deepest depths of

degradation before, but oh, dear, it was nothing to this. . . . Well, there is one consolation, such as it

At ten that night he climbed the ladder in the haunted house, pale, weak, and wretched. Roxy was

This was a twostory log house which had acquired the reputation a few years ago of being

haunted, and that was the end of its usefulness. Nobody would live in it afterward, or go near it by

night, and most people even gave it a wide berth in the daytime. As it had no competition, it was

called _the_ haunted house. It was getting crazy and ruinous now, from long neglect. It stood three

hundred yards beyond Pudd'nhead Wilson's house, with nothing between but vacancy. It was the

Tom followed Roxy into the room. She had a pile of clean straw in the corner for a bed, some

cheap but wellkept clothing was hanging on the wall, there was a tin lantern freckling the floor with

little spots of light, and there were various soap and candle boxes scattered about, which served for

"Now den, I'll tell you straight off, en I'll begin to k'leck de money later on; I ain't in no hurry. What

"Well, youyouoh, Roxy, don't make it too hard for me! Come right out and tell me you've found

"Disposition en foolishness! NO sir, dat ain't it. Dat jist ain't nothin' at all, 'longside o' what _I_

"I means disen it's de Lord's truth. You ain't no more kin to ole Marse Driscoll den I is! _dat's_

"Yassir, en _dat_ ain't all! You's a _nigger!__bawn_ a nigger and a _slave!_en you's a nigger

en a slave dis minute; en if I opens my mouf ole Marse Driscoll'll sell you down de river befo' you is

"It ain't no lie, nuther. It's just de truth, en nothin' _but_ de truth, so he'p me. Yassiryou's my

"En dat po' boy dat you's be'n akickin' en acuffin' today is Percy Driscoll's son en yo'

"En _his_ name is Tom Driscoll, en _yo's_ name's Valet de Chambers, en you ain't GOT no fambly

Tom sprang up and seized a billet of wood and raised it, but his mother only laughed at him, and

"Set down, you pup! Does you think you kin skyer me? It ain't in you, nor de likes of you. I reckon

you'd shoot me in de back, maybe, if you got a chance, for dat's jist yo' style_I_ knows you, throo

en throobut I don't mind gitt'n killed, beca'se all dis is down in writin' and it's in safe hands, too,

en de man dat's got it knows whah to look for de right man when I gits killed. Oh, bless yo' soul, if

you puts yo' mother up for as big a fool as _you_ is, you's pow'ful mistaken, I kin tell you! Now den,

Tom fretted and chafed awhile in a whirlwind of disorganizing sensations and emotions, and finally

"The whole thing is moonshine; now then, go ahead and do your worst; I'm done with you."

Roxy made no answer. She took the lantern and started for the door. Tom was in a cold panic in a

"Come back, come back!" he wailed. "I didn't mean it, Roxy; I take it all back, and I'll never say it

"Dat's one thing you's got to stop, Valet de Chambers. You can't call me _Roxy_, same as if you

was my equal. Chillen don't speak to dey mammies like dat. You'll call me ma or mammy, dat's

"Dat's all right. don't you ever forgit it ag'in, if you knows what's good for you. Now den, you had

said you wouldn't ever call it lies en moonshine ag'in. I'll tell you dis, for a warnin': if you ever does

say it ag'in, it's de LAS' time you'll ever say it to me; I'll tramp as straight to de judge as I kin walk,

Roxy knew her conquest was complete. She could have proved nothing to anybody, and her threat

of writings was a lie; but she knew the person she was dealing with, and had made both statements

She went and sat down on her candle box, and the pride and pomp of her victorious attitude made

"Now den, Chambers, we's gwine to talk business, en dey ain't gwine to be no mo' foolishness. In

de fust place, you gits fifty dollahs a month; you's gwine to han' over half of it to yo' ma. Plank it

But Tom had only six dollars in the world. He gave her that, and promised to start fair on next

But she stuck to her point until she wearied a confession out of him: he had been prowling about in

disguise, stealing small valuables from private houses; in fact, he made a good deal of a raid on his

fellow villagers a fortnight before, when he was supposed to be in St. Louis; but he doubted if he

had sent away enough stuff to realize the required amount, and was afraid to make a further

venture in the present excited state of the town. His mother approved of his conduct, and offered to

help, but this frightened him. He tremblingly ventured to say that if she would retire from the town

he should feel better and safer, and could hold his head higherand was going on to make an

argument, but she interrupted and surprised him pleasantly by saying she was ready; it didn't make

any difference to her where she stayed, so that she got her share of the pension regularly. She said

she would not go far, and would call at the haunted house once a month for her money. Then she

"I don't hate you so much now, but I've hated you a many a year and anybody would. Didn't I

change you off, en give you a good fambly en a good name, en made you a white gen'l'man en

rich, wid store clothes onen what did I git for it? You despised me all de time, en was al'ays

sayin' mean hard things to me befo' folks, en wouldn't ever let me forgit I's a niggerenen"

She fell to sobbing, and broke down. Tom said: "But you know I didn't know you were my mother;

"Well, nemmine 'bout dat, now; let it go. I's gwine to fo'git it." Then she added fiercely, "En don't

He had supposed he was asking an embarrassing question. He was mistaken. Roxy drew herself

"Does I mine tellin' you? No, dat I don't! You ain't got no 'casion to be shame' o' yo' father, _I_ kin

tell you. He wuz de highest quality in dis whole townole Virginny stock. Fust famblies, he wuz.

Jes as good stock as de Driscolls en de Howards, de bes' day dey ever seed." She put on a little

prouder air, if possible, and added impressively: "Does you 'member Cunnel Cecil Burleigh Essex,

dat died de same year yo' young Marse Tom Driscoll's pappy died, en all de Masons en Odd

Fellers en Churches turned out en give him de bigges' funeral dis town ever seed? Dat's de man."

Under the inspiration of her soaring complacency the departed graces of her earlier days returned

to her, and her bearing took to itself a dignity and state that might have passed for queenly if her

"Dey ain't another nigger in dis town dat's as highbawn as you is. Now den, go 'long! En jes you

All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"a strange complaint to come from the mouths of

Every now and then, after Tom went to bed, he had sudden wakings out of his sleep, and his first

thought was, "Oh, joy, it was all a dream!" Then he laid himself heavily down again, with a groan

He woke at dawn with one more repetition of this horror, and then he resolved to meddle no more

with that treacherous sleep. He began to think. Sufficiently bitter thinkings they were. They

Why were niggers _and_ whites made? What crime did the uncreated first nigger commit that the

curse of birth was decreed for him? And why is this awful difference made between white and

black? . . . How hard the nigger's fate seems, this morning!yet until last night such a thought

He sighed and groaned an hour or more away. Then "Chambers" came humbly in to say that

breakfast was nearly ready. "Tom" blushed scarlet to see this aristocratic white youth cringe to him,

"Get out of my sight!" and when the youth was gone, he muttered, "He has done me no harm, poor

wrench, but he is an eyesore to me now, for he is Driscoll, the young gentleman, and I am aoh, I

A gigantic eruption, like that of Krakatoa a few years ago, with the accompanying earthquakes, tidal

waves, and clouds of volcanic dust, changes the face of the surrounding landscape beyond

recognition, bringing down the high lands, elevating the low, making fair lakes where deserts had

been, and deserts where green prairies had smiled before. The tremendous catastrophe which had

befallen Tom had changed his moral landscape in much the same way. Some of his low places he

found lifted to ideals, some of his ideas had sunk to the valleys, and lay there with the sackcloth

For days he wandered in lonely places, thinking, thinking, thinking trying to get his bearings. It

was new work. If he met a friend, he found that the habit of a lifetime had in some mysterious way

nd for a shake. It was the "nigger" in him asserting its humility, and he blushed and was abashed.

And the "nigger" in him was surprised when the white friend put out his hand for a shake with him.

He found the "nigger" in him involuntarily giving the road, on the sidewalk, to a white rowdy and

loafer. When Rowena, the dearest thing his heart knew, the idol of his secret worship, invited him

in, the "nigger" in him made an embarrassed excuse and was afraid to enter and sit with the dread

white folks on equal terms. The "nigger" in him went shrinking and skulking here and there and

yonder, and fancying it saw suspicion and maybe detection in all faces, tones, and gestures. So

strange and uncharacteristic was Tom's conduct that people noticed it, and turned to look after him

when he passed on; and when he glanced backas he could not help doing, in spite of his best

resistanceand caught that puzzled expression in a person's face, it gave him a sick feeling, and

he took himself out of view as quickly as he could. He presently came to have a hunted sense and

a hunted look, and then he fled away to the hilltops and the solitudes. He said to himself that the

He dreaded his meals; the "nigger" in him was ashamed to sit at the white folk's table, and feared

discovery all the time; and once when Judge Driscoll said, "What's the matter with you? You look

as meek as a nigger," he felt as secret murderers are said to feel when the accuser says, "Thou art

His ostensible "aunt's" solicitudes and endearments were become a terror to him, and he avoided

And all the time, hatred of his ostensible "uncle" was steadily growing in his heart; for he said to

himself, "He is white; and I am his chattel, his property, his goods, and he can sell me, just as he

For as much as a week after this, Tom imagined that his character had undergone a pretty radical

In several ways his opinions were totally changed, and would never go back to what they were

before, but the main structure of his character was not changed, and could not be changed. One or

two very important features of it were altered, and in time effects would result from this, if

opportunity offeredeffects of a quite serious nature, too. Under the influence of a great mental

and moral upheaval, his character and his habits had taken on the appearance of complete

change, but after a while with the subsidence of the storm, both began to settle toward their former

places. He dropped gradually back into his old frivolous and easygoing ways and conditions of

feeling and manner of speech, and no familiar of his could have detected anything in him that

The theft raid which he had made upon the village turned out better than he had ventured to hope.

It produced the sum necessary to pay his gaming debts, and saved him from exposure to his uncle

and another smashing of the will. He and his mother learned to like each other fairly well. She

couldn't love him, as yet, because there "warn't nothing _to_ him," as she expressed it, but her

nature needed something or somebody to rule over, and he was better than nothing. Her strong

character and aggressive and commanding ways compelled Tom's admiration in spite of the fact

that he got more illustrations of them than he needed for his comfort. However, as a rule her

conversation was made up of racy tale about the privacies of the chief families of the town (for she

went harvesting among their kitchens every time she came to the village), and Tom enjoyed this. It

was just in his line. She always collected her half of his pension punctually, and he was always at

the haunted house to have a chat with her on these occasions. Every now and then, she paid him a

Occasions he would run up to St. Louis for a few weeks, and at last temptation caught him again.

He won a lot of money, but lost it, and with it a deal more besides, which he promised to raise as

For this purpose he projected a new raid on his town. He never meddled with any other town, for he

was afraid to venture into houses whose ins and outs he did not know and the habits of whose

households he was not acquainted with. He arrived at the haunted house in disguise on the

Wednesday before the advent of the twinsafter writing his Aunt Pratt that he would not arrive

until two days afterand laying in hiding there with his mother until toward daylight Friday morning,

when he went to his uncle's house and entered by the back way with his own key, and slipped up to

his room where he could have the use of the mirror and toilet articles. He had a suit of girl's clothes

with him in a bundle as a disguise for his raid, and was wearing a suit of his mother's clothing, with

black gloves and veil. By dawn he was tricked out for his raid, but he caught a glimpse of

Pudd'nhead Wilson through the window over the way, and knew that Pudd'nhead had caught a

glimpse of him. So he entertained Wilson with some airs and graces and attitudes for a while, then

stepped out of sight and resumed the other disguise, and by and by went down and out the back

But he was ill at ease. He had changed back to Roxy's dress, with the stoop of age added to he

disguise, so that Wilson would not bother himself about a humble old women leaving a neighbor's

house by the back way in the early morning, in case he was still spying. But supposing Wilson had

seen him leave, and had thought it suspicious, and had also followed him? The thought made Tom

cold. He gave up the raid for the day, and hurried back to the haunted house by the obscurest route

he knew. His mother was gone; but she came back, by and by, with the news of the grand

reception at Patsy Cooper's, and soon persuaded him that the opportunity was like a special

Providence, it was so inviting and perfect. So he went raiding, after all, and made a nice success of

it while everybody was gone to Patsy Cooper's. Success gave him nerve and even actual

intrepidity; insomuch, indeed, that after he had conveyed his harvest to his mother in a back alley,

he went to the reception himself, and added several of the valuables of that house to his takings.

After this long digression we have now arrived once more at the point where Pudd'nhead Wilson,

while waiting for the arrival of the twins on that same Friday evening, sat puzzling over the strange

apparition of that morninga girl in young Tom Driscoll's bedroom; fretting, and guessing, and

There are three infallible ways of pleasing an author, and the three form a rising scale of

compliment: 1to tell him you have read one of his books; 2to tell him you have read all of his

books; 3to ask him to let you read the manuscript of his forthcoming book. No. 1 admits you to

his respect; No. 2 admits you to his admiration; No. 3 carries you clear into his heart.

The twins arrived presently, and talk began. It flowed along chattily and sociably, and under its

influence the new friendship gathered ease and strength. Wilson got out his Calendar, by request,

and read a passage or two from it, which the twins praised quite cordially. This pleased the author

so much that he complied gladly when the asked him to lend them a batch of the work to read at

home. In the course of their wide travels, they had found out that there are three sure ways of

There was an interruption now. Young Driscoll appeared, and joined the party. He pretended to be

seeing the distinguished strangers for the first time when they rose to shake hands; but this was

only a blind, as he had already had a glimpse of them, at the reception, while robbing the house.

The twins made mental note that he was smoothfaced and rather handsome, and smooth and

undulatory in his movementsgraceful, in fact. Angelo thought he had a good eye; Luigi thought

there was something veiled and sly about it. Angelo thought he had a pleasant freeandeasy way

of talking; Luigi thought it was more so than was agreeable. Angelo thought he was a sufficiently

nice young man; Luigi reserved his decision. Tom's first contribution to the conversation was a

question which he had put to Wilson a hundred times before. It was always cheerily and

goodnatured put, and always inflicted a little pang, for it touched a secret sore; but this time the

Wilson bit his lip, but answered, "Nonot yet," with as much indifference as he could assume.

Judge Driscoll had generously left the law feature out of Wilson's biography which he had furnished

The sarcasm bit, but Wilson kept himself under control, and said without passion:

"I don't practice, it is true. It is true that I have never had a case, and have had to earn a poor living

for twenty years as an expert accountant in a town where I can't get a hold of a set of books to

untangle as often as I should like. But it is also true that I did myself well for the practice of the law.

By the time I was your age, Tom, I had chosen a profession, and was soon competent to enter

upon it." Tom winced. "I never got a chance to try my hand at it, and I may never get a chance; and

yet if I ever do get it, I shall be found ready, for I have kept up my law studies all these years."

"That's it; that's good grit! I like to see it. I've a notion to throw all my business your way. My

business and your law practice ought to make a pretty gay team, Dave," and the young fellow

"If you will throw" Wilson had thought of the girl in Tom's bedroom, and was going to say, "If you

will throw the surreptitious and disreputable part of your business my way, it may amount to

"All right, we'll change the subject; I guess you were about to give me another dig, anyway, so I'm

willing to change. How's the Awful Mystery flourishing these days? Wilson's got a scheme for

driving plain window glass panes out of the market by decorating it with greasy finger marks, and

getting rich by selling it at famine prices to the crowned heads over in Europe to outfit their palaces

"I get the subject to pass the fingers of his right through his hair, so as to get a little coating of the

natural oil on them, and then press the balls of them on the glass. A fine an delicate print of the

lines in the skin results, and is permanent, if it doesn't come in contact with something able to rub it

"That's so. Of course, I've changed entirely since then, and variety is what the crowned heads

He passed his fingers through his crop of short hair, and pressed them one at a time on the glass.

Angelo made a print of his fingers on another glass, and Luigi followed with a third. Wilson marked

the glasses with names and dates, and put them away. Tom gave one of his little laughs, and said:

"I thought I wouldn't say anything, but if variety is what you are after, you have wasted a piece of

glass. The hand print of one twin is the same as the hand print of the fellow twin."

"Well, it's done now, and I like to have them both, anyway," said Wilson, returned to his place.

"But look here, Dave," said Tom, you used to tell people's fortunes, too, when you took their finger

marks. Dave's just an allround genius a genius of the first water, gentlemen; a great scientist

running to seed here in this village, a prophet with the kind of honor that prophets generally get at

homefor here they don't give shucks for his scientifics, and they call his skull a notion

factoryhey, Dave, ain't it so? But never mind, he'll make his mark somedayfinger mark, you

know, hehe! But really, you want to let him take a shy at your palms once; it's worth twice the

price of admission or your money's returned at the door. Why, he'll read your wrinkles as easy as a

book, and not only tell you fifty or sixty things that's going to happen to you, but fifty or sixty

thousand that ain't. Come, Dave, show the gentlemen what an inspired jackatallscience we've

Wilson winced under this nagging and not very courteous chaff, and the twins suffered with him

and for him. They rightly judged, now, that the best way was to relieve him would be to take the

thing in earnest and treat it with respect, ignoring Tom's rather overdone raillery; so Luigi said:

"We have seen something of palmistry in our wanderings, and know very well what astonishing

things it can do. If it isn't a science, and one of the greatest of them too, I don't know what its other

"Yes, entirely so. Four years ago we had our hands read out to us as if our plans had been covered

"Well, do you mean to say there was actually anything in it?" asked Tom, his incredulity beginning

"There was this much in it," said Angelo: "what was told us of our characters was minutely

exactwe could have not have bettered it ourselves. Next, two or three memorable things that

have happened to us were laid barethings which no one present but ourselves could have

"Why, it's rank sorcery!" exclaimed Tom, who was now becoming very much interested. "And how

"On the whole, quite fairly," said Luigi. "Two or three of the most striking things foretold have

happened since; much the most striking one of all happened within that same year. Some of the

minor prophesies have come true; some of the minor and some of the major ones have not been

fulfilled yet, and of course may never be: still, I should be more surprised if they failed to arrive than

"Dave, I wasn't meaning to belittle that science; I was only chaffing chattering, I reckon I'd better

"Why certainly, if you want me to; but you know I've had no chance to become an expert, and don't

claim to be one. When a past event is somewhat prominently recorded in the palm, I can generally

detect that, but minor ones often escape menot always, of course, but often but I haven't

much confidence in myself when it comes to reading the future. I am talking as if palmistry was a

daily study with me, but that is not so. I haven't examined half a dozen hands in the last half dozen

years; you see, the people got to joking about it, and I stopped to let the talk die down. I'll tell you

what we'll do, Count Luigi: I'll make a try at your past, and if I have any success thereno, on the

"Waitdon't look yet, Dave! Count Luigi, here's paper and pencil. Set down that thing that you said

was the most striking one that was foretold to you, and happened less than a year afterward, and

Luigi wrote a line privately, and folded up the piece of paper, and handed it to Tom, saying:

Wilson began to study Luigi's palm, tracing life lines, heart lines, head lines, and so on, and noting

carefully their relations with the cobweb of finer and more delicate marks and lines that enmeshed

them on all sides; he felt of the fleshy cushion at the base of the thumb and noted its shape; he felt

of the fleshy side of the hand between the wrist and the base of the little finger and noted its shape

also; he painstakingly examined the fingers, observing their form, proportions, and natural manner

of disposing themselves when in repose. All this process was watched by the three spectators with

absorbing interest, their heads bent together over Luigi's palm, and nobody disturbing the stillness

with a word. Wilson now entered upon a close survey of the palm again, and his revelations began.

He mapped out Luigi's character and disposition, his tastes, aversions, proclivities, ambitions, and

eccentricities in a way which sometimes made Luigi wince and the others laugh, but both twins

Next, Wilson took up Luigi' history. He proceeded cautiously and with hesitation now, moving his

finger slowly along the great lines of the palm, and now and then halting it at a "star" or some such

landmark, and examining that neighborhood minutely. He proclaimed one or two past events, Luigi

confirmed his correctness, and the search went on. Presently Wilson glanced up suddenly with a

"Bring it out," said Luigi, goodnaturedly. "I promise you sha'n't embarrass me."

But Wilson still hesitated, and did not seem quite to know what to do. Then he said:

"I think it is too delicate a matter totoI believe I would rather write it or whisper it to you, and let

Wilson wrote something on a slip of paper and handed it to Luigi, who read it to himself and said to

"Caesar's ghost!" commented Tom, with astonishment. "It beats anything that was ever heard of!

Why, a man's own hand is his deadliest enemy! Just think of thata man's own hand keeps a

record of the deepest and fatalest secrets of his life, and is treacherously ready to expose himself

to any blackmagic stranger that comes along. But what do you let a person look at your hand for,

"Oh," said Luigi, reposefully, "I don't mind it. I killed the man for good reasons, and I don't regret it."

"I'll tell you why he did it, since he won't say himself," said Angelo, warmly. "He did it to save my

life, that's what he did it for. So it was a noble act, and not a thing to be hid in the dark."

"So it was, so it was," said Wilson. "To do such a thing to save a brother's life is a great and fine

"Now come," said Luigi, "it is very pleasant to hear you say these things, but for unselfishness, or

heroism, or magnanimity, the circumstances won't stand scrutiny. You overlook one detail; suppose

I hadn't saved Angelo's life, what would have become of mine? If I had let the man kill him, wouldn't

"Yes, that is your way of talking," said Angelo, "but I know you I don't believe you thought of

yourself at all. I keep that weapon yet that Luigi killed the man with, and I'll show it to you

sometime. That incident makes it interesting, and it had a history before it came into Luigi's hands

which adds to its interest. It was given to Luigi by a great Indian prince, the Gaikowar of Baroda,

and it had been in his family two or three centuries. It killed a good many disagreeable people who

troubled the hearthstone at one time or another. It isn't much too look at, except it isn't shaped like

other knives, or dirks, or whatever it may be calledhere, I'll draw it for you." He took a sheet of

paper and made a rapid sketch. "There it isa broad and murderous blade, with edges like a razor

for sharpness. The devices engraved on it are the ciphers or names of its long line of

possessorsI had Luigi's name added in Roman letters myself with our coat of arms, as you see.

You notice what a curious handle the thing has. It is solid ivory, polished like a mirror, and is four or

five inches longround, and as thick as a large man's wrist, with the end squared off flat, for your

thumb to rest on; for you grasp it, with your thumb resting on the blunt end soand lift it along

and strike downward. The Gaikowar showed us how the thing was done when he gave it to Luigi,

and before that night was ended, Luigi had used the knife, and the Gaikowar was a man short by

reason of it. The sheath is magnificently ornamented with gems of great value. You will find a

"It's lucky I came here. I would have sold that knife for a song; I supposed the jewels were glass."

"But go on; don't stop," said Wilson. "Our curiosity is up now, to hear about the homicide. Tell us

"Well, briefly, the knife was to blame for that, all around. A native servant slipped into our room in

the palace in the night, to kill us and steal the knife on account of the fortune encrusted on its

sheath, without a doubt. Luigi had it under his pillow; we were in bed together. There was a dim

nightlight burning. I was asleep, but Luigi was awake, and he thought he detected a vague form

nearing the bed. He slipped the knife out of the sheath and was ready and unembarrassed by

hampering bedclothes, for the weather was hot and we hadn't any. Suddenly that native rose at the

bedside, and bent over me with his right hand lifted and a dirk in it aimed at my throat; but Luigi

grabbed his wrist, pulled him downward, and drove his own knife into the man's neck. That is the

Wilson and Tom drew deep breaths, and after some general chat about the tragedy, Pudd'nhead

"Now, Tom, I've never had a look at your palms, as it happens; perhaps you've got some little

"Well, if I am, it ain't because I'm a murderer!" Luigi's dark face flushed, but before he could speak

or move, Tom added with anxious haste: "Oh, I beg a thousand pardons. I didn't mean that; it was

Wilson came to the rescue, and smoothed things down as well as he could; and in fact was entirely

successful as far as the twins were concerned, for they felt sorrier for the affront put upon him by

his guest's outburst of ill manners than for the insult offered to Luigi. But the success was not so

pronounced with the offender. Tom tried to seem at his ease, and he went through the motions

fairly well, but at bottom he felt resentful toward all the three witnesses of his exhibition; in fact, he

felt so annoyed at them for having witnessed it and noticed it that he almost forgot to feel annoyed

at himself for placing it before them. However, something presently happened which made him

almost comfortable, and brought him nearly back to a state of charity and friendliness. This was a

little spat between the twins; not much of a spat, but still a spat; and before they got far with it, they

were in a decided condition of irritation while pretending to be actuated by more respectable

motives. By his help the fire got warmed up to the blazing point, and he might have had the

happiness of seeing the flames show up in another moment, but for the interruption of a knock on

the dooran interruption which fretted him as much as it gratified Wilson. Wilson opened the door.

The visitor was a goodnatured, ignorant, energetic middleaged Irishman named John Buckstone,

who was a great politician in a small way, and always took a large share in public matters of every

sort. One of the town's chief excitements, just now, was over the matter of rum. There was a strong

rum party and a strong antirum party. Buckstone was training with the rum party, and he had been

sent to hunt up the twins and invite them to attend a mass meeting of that faction. He delivered his

errand, and said the clans were already gathering in the big hall over the market house. Luigi

accepted the invitation cordially. Angelo less cordially, since he disliked crowds, and did not drink

the powerful intoxicants of America. In fact, he was even a teetotaler sometimes when it was

The twins left with Buckstone, and Tom Driscoll joined the company with them uninvited.

In the distance, one could see a long wavering line of torches drifting down the main street, and

could hear the throbbing of the bass drum, the clash of cymbals, the squeaking of a fife or two, and

the faint roar of remote hurrahs. The tail end of this procession was climbing the market house

stairs when the twins arrived in its neighborhood; when they reached the hall, it was full of people,

torches, smoke, noise, and enthusiasm. They were conducted to the platform by BuckstoneTom

Driscoll still followingand were delivered to the chairman in the midst of a prodigious explosion of

welcome. When the noise had moderated a little, the chair proposed that "our illustrious guests be

at once elected, by complimentary acclamation, to membership in our everglorious organization,

This eloquent discharge opened the floodgates of enthusiasm again, and the election was carried

Glasses of whisky were handed to the twins. Luigi waves his aloft, then brought it to his lips; but

"What's the matter with the other one?" "What is the blond one going back on us for?" "Explain!

"We have made an unfortunate mistake, gentlemen. I find that the Count Angelo Capello is

opposed to our creedis a teetotaler, in fact, and was not intending to apply for membership with

us. He desires that we reconsider the vote by which he was elected. What is the pleasure of the

There was a general burst of laughter, plentifully accented with whistlings and catcalls, but the

energetic use of the gavel presently restored something like order. Then a man spoke from the

crowd, and said that while he was very sorry that the mistake had been made, it would not be

possible to rectify it at the present meeting. According to the bylaws, it must go over to the next

regular meeting for action. He would not offer a motion, as none was required. He desired to

apologize to the gentlemen in the name of the house, and begged to assure him that as far as it

might lie in the power of the Sons of Liberty, his temporary membership in the order would be made

"That's the talk! "He's a good fellow, anyway, if he _is_ a teetotaler!" "Drink his health!" "Give him a

Glasses were handed around, and everybody on the platform drank Angelo's health, while the

Tom Driscoll drank. It was his second glass, for he had drunk Angelo's the moment that Angelo had

set it down. The two drinks made him very merryalmost idiotically so, and he began to take a

most lively and prominent part in the proceedings, particularly in the music and catcalls and side

The chairman was still standing at the front, the twins at his side. The extraordinarily close

resemblance of the brothers to each other suggested a witticism to Tom Driscoll, and just as the

chairman began a speech he skipped forward and said, with an air of tipsy confidence, to the

"Boys, I move that he keeps still and lets this human philopena snip you out a speech."

The descriptive aptness of the phrase caught the house, and a mighty burst of laughter followed.

Luigi's southern blood leaped to the boiling point in a moment under the sharp humiliation of this

insult delivered in the presence of four hundred strangers. It was not in the young man's nature to

let the matter pass, or to delay the squaring of the account. He took a couple of strides and halted

behind the unsuspecting joker. Then he drew back and delivered a kick of such titanic vigor that it

lifted Tom clear over the footlights and landed him on the heads of the front row of the Sons of

Even a sober person does not like to have a human being emptied on him when he is not going

any harm; a person who is not sober cannot endure such an attention at all. The nest of Sons of

Liberty that Driscoll landed in had not a sober bird in it; in fact there was probably not an entirely

sober one in the auditorium. Driscoll was promptly and indignantly flung on the heads of Sons in

the next row, and these Sons passed him on toward the rear, and then immediately began to

pummel the front row Sons who had passed him to them. This course was strictly followed by

bench after bench as Driscoll traveled in his tumultuous and airy flight toward the door; so he left

behind him an everlengthening wake of raging and plunging and fighting and swearing humanity.

Down went group after group of torches, and presently above the deafening clatter of the gavel,

roar of angry voices, and crash of succumbing benches, rose the paralyzing cry of "_fire!_"

The fighting ceased instantly; the cursing ceased; for one distinctly defined moment, there was a

dead hush, a motionless calm, where the tempest had been; then with one impulse the multitude

awoke to life and energy again, and went surging and struggling and swaying, this way and that, its

outer edges melting away through windows and doors and gradually lessening the pressure and

The fireboys were never on hand so suddenly before; for there was no distance to go this time,

their quarters being in the rear end of the market house, There was an engine company and a

hookandladder company. Half of each was composed of rummies and the other half of

antirummies, after the moral and political shareandsharealike fashion of the frontier town of

the period. Enough antirummies were loafing in quarters to man the engine and the ladders. In

two minutes they had their red shirts and helmets on they never stirred officially in unofficial

costumeand as the mass meeting overhead smashed through the long row of windows and

poured out upon the roof of the arcade, the deliverers were ready for them with a powerful stream

of water, which washed some of them off the roof and nearly drowned the rest. But water was

preferable to fire, and still the stampede from the windows continued, and still the pitiless drenching

assailed it until the building was empty; then the fireboys mounted to the hall and flooded it with

water enough to annihilate forty times as much fire as there was there; for a village fire company

does not often get a chance to show off, and so when it does get a chance, it makes the most of it.

Such citizens of that village as were of a thoughtful and judicious temperament did not insure

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fearnot absence of fear. Except a creature be part

coward, it is not a compliment to say it is brave; it is merely a loose misapplication of the word.

Consider the flea!incomparably the bravest of all the creatures of God, if ignorance of fear were

courage. Whether you are asleep or awake he will attack you, caring nothing for the fact that in bulk

and strength you are to him as are the massed armies of the earth to a sucking child; he lives both

day and night and all days and nights in the very lap of peril and the immediate presence of death,

and yet is no more afraid than is the man who walks the streets of a city that was threatened by an

earthquake ten centuries before. When we speak of Clive, Nelson, and Putnam as men who "didn't

know what fear was," we ought always to add the fleaand put him at the head of the procession.

Judge Driscoll was in bed and asleep by ten o'clock on Friday night, and he was up and gone

afishing before daylight in the morning with his friend Pembroke Howard. These two had been

boys together in Virginia when that state still ranked as the chief and most imposing member of the

Union, and they still coupled the proud and affectionate adjective "old" with her name when they

spoke of her. In Missouri a recognized superiority attached to any person who hailed from Old

Virginia; and this superiority was exalted to supremacy when a person of such nativity could also

prove descent from the First Families of that great commonwealth. The Howards and Driscolls

were of this aristocracy. In their eyes, it was a nobility. It had its unwritten laws, and they were as

clearly defined and as strict as any that could be found among the printed statues of the land. The

F.F.V. was born a gentleman; his highest duty in life was to watch over that great inheritance and

keep it unsmirched. He must keep his honor spotless. Those laws were his chart; his course was

marked out on it; if he swerved from it by so much as half a point of the compass, it meant

shipwreck to his honor; that is to say, degradation from his rank as a gentleman. These laws

required certain things of him which his religion might forbid: then his religion must yieldthe laws

could not be relaxed to accommodate religions or anything else. Honor stood first; and the laws

defined what it was and wherein it differed in certain details from honor as defined by church

creeds and by the social laws and customs of some of the minor divisions of the globe that had got

If Judge Driscoll was the recognized first citizen of Dawson's Landing, Pembroke Howard was

easily its recognized second citizen. He was called "the great lawyer"an earned title. He and

Although Driscoll was a freethinker and Howard a strong and determined Presbyterian, their warm

intimacy suffered no impairment in consequence. They were men whose opinions were their own

property and not subject to revision and amendment, suggestion or criticism, by anybody, even

The day's fishing finished, they came floating downstream in their skiff, talking national politics and

other high matters, and presently met a skiff coming up from town, with a man in it who said:

"I reckon you know one of the new twins gave your nephew a kicking last night, Judge?"

The old judge's lips paled, and his eyes began to flame. He choked with anger for a moment, then

The man did it. At the finish the judge was silent a minute, turning over in his mind the shameful

"H'mI don't understand it. I was asleep at home. He didn't wake me. Thought he was competent

to manage his affair without my help, I reckon." His face lit up with pride and pleasure at that

thought, and he said with a cheery complacency, "I like thatit's the true old blood hey,

Howard smiled an iron smile, and nodded his head approvingly. Then the newsbringer spoke

The old man shrank suddenly together like one who has received a death stroke. Howard sprang

for him as he sank forward in a swoon, and took him in his arms, and bedded him on his back in

"Go, nowdon't let him come to and find you here. You see what an effect your heedless speech

has had; you ought to have been more considerate than to blurt out such a cruel piece of slander

"I'm right down sorry I did it now, Mr. Howard, and I wouldn't have done it if I had thought; but it ain't

He rowed away. Presently the old judge came out of his faint and looked up piteously into the

"You know it's a lie as well as I do, old friend. He is of the best blood of the Old Dominion."

"God bless you for saying it!" said the old gentleman, fervently. "Ah, Pembroke, it was such a

Howard stayed by his friend, and saw him home, and entered the house with him. It was dark, and

past suppertime, but the judge was not thinking of supper; he was eager to hear the slander

refuted from headquarters, and as eager to have Howard hear it, too. Tom was sent for, and he

came immediately. He was bruised and lame, and was not a happylooking object. His uncle made

"We have been hearing about your adventure, Tom, with a handsome lie added for embellishment.

Now pulverize that lie to dust! What measures have you taken? How does the thing stand?"

Tom answered guilelessly: "It don't stand at all; it's all over. I had him up in court and beat him.

Pudd'nhead Wilson defended him first case he ever had, and lost it. The judge fined the

Howard and the judge sprang to their feet with the opening sentence why, neither knew; then

they stood gazing vacantly at each other. Howard stood a moment, then sat mournfully down

"You cur! You scum! You vermin! Do you mean to tell me that blood of my race has suffered a blow

Tom's head drooped, and he answered with an eloquent silence. His uncle stared at him with a

mixed expression of amazement and shame and incredulity that was sorrowful to see. At last he

Tom began to turn sick, and to show it. He turned his hat round and round in his hand, his uncle

glowering blacker and blacker upon him as the heavy seconds drifted by; then at last he began to

"Oh, please, don't ask me to do it, uncle! He is a murderous devil I never couldII'm afraid of

Old Driscoll's mouth opened and closed three times before he could get it to perform its office; then

"A coward in my family! A Driscoll a coward! Oh, what have I done to deserve this infamy!" He

tottered to his secretary in the corner, repeated that lament again and again in heartbreaking tones,

and got out of a drawer a paper, which he slowly tore to bits, scattering the bits absently in his track

as he walked up and down the room, still grieving and lamenting. At last he said:

"There it is, shreds and fragments once moremy will. Once more you have forced me to

disinherit you, you base son of a most noble father! Leave my sight! Gobefore I spit on you!"

Tom was very heavyhearted. His appetite was gone with his property and his selfrespect. He went

out the back way and wandered down the obscure lane grieving, and wondering if any course of

future conduct, however discreet and carefully perfected and watched over, could win back his

uncle's favor and persuade him to reconstruct once more that generous will which had just gone to

ruin before his eyes. He finally concluded that it could. He said to himself that he had accomplished

this sort of triumph once already, and that what had been done once could be done again. He

would set about it. He would bend every energy to the task, and he would score that triumph once

more, cost what it might to his convenience, limit as it might his frivolous and libertyloving life.

"To begin," he says to himself, "I'll square up with the proceeds of my raid, and then gambling has

got to be stoppedand stopped short off. It's the worst vice I've gotfrom my standpoint, anyway,

because it's the one he can most easily find out, through the impatience of my creditors. He thought

it expensive to have to pay two hundred dollars to them for me once. Expensive_that!_ Why, it

cost me the whole of his fortunebut, of course, he never thought of that; some people can't think

of any but their own side of a case. If he had known how deep I am in now, the will would have

gone to pot without waiting for a duel to help. Three hundred dollars! It's a pile! But he'll never hear

of it, I'm thankful to say. The minute I've cleared it off, I'm safe; and I'll never touch a card again.

Anyway, I won't while he lives, I make oath to that. I'm entering on my last reformI know ityes,

When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know have gone to a better world, I

October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are

July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February.

Thus mournfully communing with himself, Tom moped along the lane past Pudd'nhead Wilson's

house, and still on and on between fences enclosing vacant country on each hand till he neared the

haunted house, then he came moping back again, with many sighs and heavy with trouble. He

sorely wanted cheerful company. Rowena! His heart gave a bound at the thought, but the next

He was on the inhabited side of Wilson's house, and now as he approached it, he noticed that the

sitting room was lighted. This would do; others made him feel unwelcome sometimes, but Wilson

never failed in courtesy toward him, and a kindly courtesy does at least save one's feelings, even if

it is not professing to stand for a welcome. Wilson heard footsteps at his threshold, then the

"It's that fickletempered, dissipated young goosepoor devil, he find friends pretty scarce today,

likely, after the disgrace of carrying a personal assault case into a lawcourt."

Tom entered, and dropped into a chair, without saying anything. Wilson said kindly:

"Why, my boy, you look desolate. Don't take it so hard. Try and forget you have been kicked."

"Oh, dear," said Tom, wretchedly, "it's not that, Pudd'nhead it's not that.. It's a thousand times

Wilson said to himself, "Aha!" and thought of the mysterious girl in the bedroom. "The Driscolls

"Oh, shucks, this hasn't got anything to do with dissipation. He wanted me to challenge that derned

"Yes, of course he would do that," said Wilson in a meditative matterofcourse way, "but the thing

that puzzled me was, why he didn't look to that last night, for one thing, and why he let you carry

such a matter into a court of law at all, either before the duel or after it. It's no place for it. It was not

"It happened because he didn't know anything about it. He was asleep when I got home last night."

"I didn't choose to tell himthat's all. He was going afishing before dawn, with Pembroke

Howard, and if I got the twins into the common calabooseand I thought sure I couldI never

dreamed of their slipping out on a paltry fine for such an outrageous offense well, once in the

calaboose they would be disgraced, and uncle wouldn't want any duels with that sort of characters,

"Tom, I am ashamed of you! I don't see how you could treat your good old uncle so. I am a better

friend of his than you are; for if I had known the circumstances I would have kept that case out of

"You would?" exclaimed Tom, with lively surprise. "And it your first case! And you know perfectly

well there never would have _been_ any case if he had got that chance, don't you? And you'd have

finished your days a pauper nobody, instead of being an actually launched and recognized lawyer

"I believe youupon my word I do. I don't know why I do, but I do. Pudd'nhead Wilson, I think

"Well, he has been requiring you to fight the Italian, and you have refused. You degenerate

"Oh, that's nothing! I don't care for anything, now that the will's torn up again."

"Tom, tell me squarelydidn't he find any fault with you for anything but those two

He watched the young fellow's face narrowly, but it was entirely reposeful, and so also was the

"No, he didn't find any other fault with me. If he had had any to find, he would have begun

yesterday, for he was just in the humor for it. He drove that jackpair around town and showed

them the sights, and when he came home he couldn't find his father's old silver watch that don't

keep time and he thinks so much of, and couldn't remember what he did with it three or four days

ago when he saw it last, and when I suggested that it probably wasn't lost but stolen, it put him in a

regular passion, and he said I was a fool which convinced me, without any trouble, that that was

just what he was afraid _had_ happened, himself, but did not want to believe it, because lost things

"Yes, theft. That watch isn't lost, it's stolen. There's been another raid on the townand just the

same old mysterious sort of thing that has happened once before, as you remember."

"No. That is, I did miss a silver pencil case that Aunt Mary Pratt gave me last birthday"

"No, I sha'n't; for when I suggested theft about the watch and got such a rap, I went and examined

my room, and the pencil case was missing, but it was only mislaid, and I found it again."

"Well, nothing of consequence. I missed a small plain gold ring worth two or three dollars, but that

Mr. Justice Robinson entered, followed by Buckstone and the town constable, Jim Blake. They sat

"By the way, We've just added another to the list of thefts, maybe two. Judge Driscoll's old silver

"Well, it is a bad business," said the justice, "and gets worse the further it goes. The Hankses, the

Dobsons, the Pilligrews, the Ortons, the Grangers, the Hales, the Fullers, the Holcombs, in fact

everybody that lives around about Patsy Cooper's had been robbed of little things like trinkets and

teaspoons and suchlike small valuables that are easily carried off. It's perfectly plain that the thief

took advantage of the reception at Patsy Cooper's when all the neighbors were in her house and all

their niggers hanging around her fence for a look at the show, to raid the vacant houses

undisturbed. Patsy is miserable about it; miserable on account of the neighbors, and particularly

miserable on account of her foreigners, of course; so miserable on their account that she hasn't any

"It's the same old raider," said Wilson. "I suppose there isn't any doubt about that."

"No, you're wrong there," said Blake. "The other times it was a man; there was plenty of signs of

that, as we know, in the profession, thought we never got hands on him; but this time it's a woman."

Wilson thought of the mysterious girl straight off. She was always in his mind now. But she failed

"She's a stoopshouldered old woman with a covered basket on her arm, in a black veil, dressed in

mourning. I saw her going aboard the ferryboat yesterday. Lives in Illinois, I reckon; but I don't care

"Well, there ain't any other, for one thing; and for another, some nigger draymen that happened to

be driving along saw her coming out of or going into houses, and told me soand it just happens

It was granted that this was plenty good enough circumstantial evidence. A pensive silence

"There's one good thing, anyway. She can't either pawn or sell Count Luigi's costly Indian dagger."

"Because when the twins went home from the Sons of Liberty meeting last night, news of the raid

was sifting in from everywhere, and Aunt Patsy was in distress to know if they had lost anything.

They found that the dagger was gone, and they notified the police and pawnbrokers everywhere. It

was a great haul, yes, but the old woman won't get anything out of it, because she'll get caught."

"What a leatherheaded idea!" exclaimed the constable. "The thief das'n't go near them, nor send

anybody. Whoever goes is going to get himself nabbed, for their ain't any pawnbroker that's going

If anybody had noticed Tom's face at that time, the graygreen color of it might have provoked

curiosity; but nobody did. He said to himself: "I'm gone! I never can square up; the rest of the

plunder won't pawn or sell for half of the bill. Oh, I know it I'm gone, I'm goneand this time it's

"Softly, softly," said Wilson to Blake. "I planned their scheme for them at midnight last night, and it

was all finished up shipshape by two this morning. They'll get their dagger back, and then I'll

"Well, you have whetted us up pretty sharp. Wilson, and I'm free to say that if you don't mind telling

"Oh, I'd as soon tell as not, Buckstone, but as long as the twins and I agreed to say nothing about

it, we must let it stand so. But you can take my word for it, you won't be kept waiting three days.

Somebody will apply for that reward pretty promptly, and I'll show you the thief and the dagger both

"It may all beyes, and I hope it will, but I'm blamed if I can see my way through it. It's too many

The subject seemed about talked out. Nobody seemed to have anything further to offer. After a

silence the justice of the peace informed Wilson that he and Buckstone and the constable had

come as a committee, on the part of the Democratic party, to ask him to run for mayorfor the little

town was about to become a city and the first charter election was approaching. It was the first

attention which Wilson had ever received at the hands of any party; it was a sufficiently humble

one, but it was a recognition of his debut into the town's life and activities at last; it was a step

upward, and he was deeply gratified. He accepted, and the committee departed, followed by young

The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart, and not to be mentioned with commoner things. It is

chief of this world's luxuries, king by the grace of God over all the fruits of the earth. When one has

tasted it, he knows what the angels eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took: we know

About the time that Wilson was bowing the committee out, Pembroke Howard was entering the

next house to report. He found the old judge sitting grim and straight in his chair, waiting.

"Accepts, does he?" and the light of battle gleamed joyously in the Judge's eye.

"Admirable? He's a darling! Why, it's an honor as well as a pleasure to stand up before such a man.

Comeoff with you! Go and arrange everythingand give him my heartiest compliments. A rare

"I'll have him in the vacant stretch between Wilson's and the haunted house within the hour, and I'll

Judge Driscoll began to walk the floor in a state of pleased excitement; but presently he stopped,

and began to thinkbegan to think of Tom. Twice he moved toward the secretary, and twice he

"This may be my last night in the worldI must not take the chance. He is worthless and unworthy,

but it is largely my fault. He was entrusted to me by my brother on his dying bed, and I have

indulged him to his hurt, instead of training him up severely, and making a man of him, I have

violated my trust, and I must not add the sin of desertion to that. I have forgiven him once already,

and would subject him to a long and hard trial before forgiving him again, if I could live; but I must

not run that risk. No, I must restore the will. But if I survive the duel, I will hide it away, and he will

not know, and I will not tell him until he reforms, and I see that his reformation is going to be

He redrew the will, and his ostensible nephew was heir to a fortune again. As he was finishing his

task, Tom, wearied with another brooding tramp, entered the house and went tiptoeing past the

sitting room door. He glanced in, and hurried on, for the sight of his uncle was nothing but terrors

for him tonight. But his uncle was writing! That was unusual at this late hour. What could he be

writing? A chill of anxiety settled down upon Tom's heart. Did that writing concern him? He was

afraid so. He reflected that when ill luck begins, it does not come in sprinkles, but in showers. He

said he would get a glimpse of that document or know the reason why. He heard someone coming,

and stepped out of sight and hearing. It was Pembroke Howard. What could be hatching?

"Everything's right and ready. He's gone to the battleground with his second and the surgeonalso

with his brother. I've arranged it all with WilsonWilson's his second. We are to have three shots

"Bright as day, nearly. Perfect, for the distancefifteen yards. No windnot a breath; hot and

Pembroke read and witnessed the will, then gave the old man's hand a hearty shake and said:

"Now that's right, Yorkbut I knew you would do it. You couldn't leave that poor chap to fight along

without means or profession, with certain defeat before him, and I knew you wouldn't, for his

"For his dead father's sake, I couldn't, I know; for poor Percy but you know what Percy was to

The judge put the will away, and the two started for the battleground. In another minute the will was

in Tom's hands. His misery vanished, his feelings underwent a tremendous revulsion. He put the

will carefully back in its place, and spread his mouth and swung his hat once, twice, three times

around his head, in imitation of three rousing huzzahs, no sound issuing from his lips. He fell to

communing with himself excitedly and joyously, but every now and then he let off another volley of

He said to himself: "I've got the fortune again, but I'll not let on that I know about it. And this time I'm

gong to hang on to it. I take no more risks. I'll gamble no more, I'll drink no more, becausewell,

because I'll not go where there is any of that sort of thing going on, again. It's the sure way, and the

only sure way; I might have thought of that soonerwell, yes, if I had wanted to. But nowdear

me, I've had a scare this time, and I'll take no more chances. Not a single chance more. Land! I

persuaded myself this evening that I could fetch him around without any great amount of effort, but

I've been getting more and more heavyhearted and doubtful straight along, ever since. If he tells

me about this thing, all right; but if he doesn't, I sha'n't let on. Iwell, I'd like to tell Pudd'nhead

Wilson, butno, I'll think about that; perhaps I won't." He whirled off another dead huzzah, and

He was about to close with a final grand silent demonstration, when he suddenly recollected that

Wilson had put it out of his power to pawn or sell the Indian knife, and that he was once more in

awful peril of exposure by his creditors for that reason. His joy collapsed utterly, and he turned

away and moped toward the door moaning and lamenting over the bitterness of his luck. He

dragged himself upstairs, and brooded in his room a long time, disconsolate and forlorn, with Luigi's

"When I supposed these stones were glass and this ivory bone, the thing hadn't any interest for me

because it hadn't any value, and couldn't help me out of my trouble. But nowwhy, now it is full of

interest; yes, and of a sort to break a body's heart. It's a bag of gold that has turned to dirt and

ashes in my hands. It could save me, and save me so easily, and yet I've got to go to ruin. It's like

drowning with a life preserver in my reach. All the hard luck comes to me, and all the good luck

goes to other people Pudd'nhead Wilson, for instance; even his career has got a sort of a little

start at last, and what has he done to deserve it, I should like to know? Yes, he has opened his own

road, but he isn't content with that, but must block mine. It's a sordid, selfish world, and I wish I was

out of it." He allowed the light of the candle to play upon the jewels of the sheath, but the flashings

and sparklings had no charm for his eye; they were only just so many pangs to his heart. "I must

not say anything to Roxy about this thing," he said. "She is too daring. She would be for digging

these stones out and selling them, and then why, she would be arrested and the stones traced,

and then" The thought made him quake, and he hid the knife away, trembling all over and

glancing furtively about, like a criminal who fancies that the accuser is already at hand.

Should he try to sleep? Oh, no, sleep was not for him; his trouble was too haunting, too afflicting for

He had heard several distant gunshots, but that sort of thing was not uncommon, and they had

made no impression upon him. He went out at the back door, and turned westward. He passed

Wilson's house and proceeded along the lane, and presently saw several figures approaching

Wilson's place through the vacant lots. These were the duelists returning from the fight; he thought

he recognized them, but as he had no desire for white people's company, he stooped down behind

"Great Scott!" Then he added to himself: "That's what made him remake the will; he thought he

might get killed, and it softened him toward me. And that's what he and Howard were so busy

"What is you mumblin' 'bout, Chambers? Whah was you? Didn't you know dey was gwine to be a

"No, I didn't. The old man tried to get me to fight one with Count Luigi, but he didn't succeed, so I

He laughed at the idea, and went rambling on with a detailed account of his talk with the judge, and

how shocked and ashamed the judge was to find that he had a coward in his family. He glanced up

at last, and got a shock himself. Roxana's bosom was heaving with suppressed passion, and she

"En you refuse' to fight a man dat kicked you, 'stid o' jumpin' at de chance! En you ain't got no mo'

feelin' den to come en tell me, dat fetched sich a po' lowdown ornery rabbit into de worl'! Pah! it

make me sick! It's de nigger in you, dat's what it is. Thirtyone parts o' you is white, en on'y one

part nigger, en dat po' little one part is yo' _soul_. 'Tain't wuth savin'; tain't wuth totin' out on a

shovel en throwin' en de gutter. You has disgraced yo' birth. What would yo' pa think o' you? It's

The last three sentences stung Tom into a fury, and he said to himself that if his father were only

alive and in reach of assassination his mother would soon find that he had a very clear notion of the

size of his indebtedness to that man, and was willing to pay it up in full, and would do it too, even at

risk of his life; but he kept this thought to himself; that was safest in his mother's present state.

"Whatever has come o' yo' Essex blood? Dat's what I can't understan'. En it ain't on'y jist Essex

blood dat's in you, not by a long sight 'deed it ain't! My greatgreatgreatgran'father en yo'

greatgreatgreatgreatgran'father was Ole Cap'n John Smith, de highest blood dat Ole Virginny

ever turned out, en _his_ greatgreatgran'mother, or somers along back dah, was Pocahontas de

Injun queen, en her husbun' was a nigger king outen Africa en yit here you is, a slinkin' outen a

duel en disgracin' our whole line like a ornery lowdown hound! Yes, it's de nigger in you!"

She sat down on her candle box and fell into a reverie. Tom did not disturb her; he sometimes

lacked prudence, but it was not in circumstances of this kind, Roxana's storm went gradually down,

but it died hard, and even when it seemed to be quite gone, it would now and then break out in a

distant rumble, so to speak, in the form of muttered ejaculations. One of these was, "Ain't nigger

enough in him to show in his fingernails, en dat takes mighty little yit dey's enough to pain his

Presently she muttered. "Yassir, enough to paint a whole thimbleful of 'em." At last her ramblings

ceased altogether, and her countenance began to cleara welcome sight to Tom, who had

learned her moods, and knew she was on the threshold of good humor now. He noticed that from

time to time she unconsciously carried her finger to the end of her nose. He looked closer and said:

She sent out the sort of wholehearted peal of laughter which God had vouchsafed in its perfection

to none but the happy angels in heaven and the bruised and broken black slave on the earth, and

"Happened disaway. I 'uz asett'n' here kinder dozin' in de dark, en _chebang!_ goes a gun,

right out dah. I skips along out towards t'other end o' de house to see what's gwine on, en stops by

de ole winder on de side towards Pudd'nhead Wilson's house dat ain't got no sash in it but dey

ain't none of 'em got any sashes, for as dat's concerned en I stood dah in de dark en look out, en

dar in the moonlight, right down under me 'uz one o' de twins acussin'not much, but jist

acussin' softit 'uz de brown one dat 'uz cussin,' 'ca'se he 'uz hit in de shoulder. En Doctor

Claypool he 'uz aworkin' at him, en Pudd'nhead Wilson he 'uz ahe'pin', en ole Jedge Driscoll en

Pem Howard 'uz astandin' out yonder a little piece waitin' for 'em to get ready agin. En treckly dey

squared off en give de word, en _bangbang_ went de pistols, en de twin he say, 'Ouch!'hit him

on de han' dis time en I hear dat same bullet go _spat!_ ag'in de logs under de winder; en de

nex' time dey shoot, de twin say, 'Ouch!' ag'in, en I done it too, 'ca'se de bullet glance' on his

cheekbone en skip up here en glance' on de side o' de winder en whiz right acrost my face en tuck

de hide off'n my nose why, if I'd 'a'; be'n jist a inch or a inch en a half furder 't would 'a' tuck de

"Dat's a question to ask, ain't it! What else would I do? Does I git a chance to see a duel every

"They've got pluck enough, I suppose; what they lack is judgment. _I_ wouldn't have stood there."

"Yes, we all got hit 'cep' de blon' twin en de doctor en de seconds. De Jedge didn't git hurt, but I

"'George!" said Tom to himself, "to come so near being out of my trouble, and miss it by an inch.

Oh dear, dear, he will live to find me out and sell me to some nigger trader yetyes, and he would

"Chile! What you hit a body so sudden for, like dat? What's be'n en gone en happen'?"

"Well, there's one thing I didn't tell you. When I wouldn't fight, he tore up the will again, and"

"Wait and hear me through, can't you! I reckon that when he resolved to fight, himself, he thought

he might get killed and not have a chance to forgive me any more in this life, so he made the will

"Oh, thank goodness, den we's safe ag'in!safe! en so what did you want to come here en talk

"Hold ON, I tell you, and let me finish. The swag I gathered won't half square me up, and the first

Roxana dropped her chin, and told her son to leave her alone she must think this matter out.

"You got to go mighty keerful now, I tell you! En here's what you got to do. He didn't git killed, en if

you gives him de least reason, he'll bust de will ag'in, en dat's de _las'_ time, now you hear me!

Soyou's got to show him what you kin do in de nex' few days. You got to be pison good, en let

him see it; you got to do everything dat'll make him b'lieve in you, en you got to sweeten aroun' ole

Aunt Pratt, tooshe's pow'ful strong with de Jedge, en de bes' frien' you got. Nex', you'll go 'long

away to Sent Louis, en dat'll _keep_ him in yo' favor. Den you go en make a bargain wid dem

people. You tell 'em he ain't gwine to live longen dat's de fac', tooen tell 'em you'll pay 'em

"Dat's it. Den you take and sell yo' truck aroun', a little at a time, en pay de intrust. How long will it

"I think there's enough to pay the interest five or six months." "Den you's all right. If he don't die in

six months, dat don't make no diff'renceProvidence'll provide. You's gwine to be safe if you

behaves." She bent an austere eye on him and added, "En you IS gwine to behavedoes you

He laughed and said he was going to try, anyway. She did not unbend. She said gravely:

"Tryin' ain't de thing. You's gwine to _do_ it. You ain't gwine to steal a pin'ca'se it ain't safe no

mo'; en you ain't gwine into no bad comp'nynot even once, you understand; en you ain't gwine to

drink a dropnary a single drop; en you ain't gwine to gamble one single gamblenot one! Dis

ain't what you's gwine to try to do, it's what you's gwine to DO. En I'll tell you how I knows it. Dis is

how. I's gwine to foller along to Sent Louis my own self; en you's gwine to come to me every day o'

your life, en I'll look you over; en if you fails in one single one o' dem thingsjist _one_ I take my

oath I'll come straight down to dis town en tell de Jedge you's a nigger en a slaveen _prove_ it!"

She paused to let her words sink home. Then she added, "Chambers, does you b'lieve me when I

"Yes, Mother, I know, now, that I am reformedand permanently. Permanentlyand beyond the

Behold, the fool saith, "Put not all thine eggs in the one basket" which is but a manner of saying,

"Scatter your money and your attention"; but the wise man saith, "Put all your eggs in the one

What a time of it Dawson's Landing was having! All its life it had been asleep, but now it hardly got

a chance for a nod, so swiftly did big events and crashing surprises come along in one another's

wake: Friday morning, first glimpse of Real Nobility, also grand reception at Aunt Patsy Cooper's,

also great robber raid; Friday evening, dramatic kicking of the heir of the chief citizen in presence of

four hundred people; Saturday morning, emergence as practicing lawyer of the longsubmerged

Pudd'nhead Wilson; Saturday night, duel between chief citizen and titled stranger.

The people took more pride in the duel than in all the other events put together, perhaps. It was a

glory to their town to have such a thing happen there. In their eyes the principals had reached the

summit of human honor. Everybody paid homage to their names; their praises were in all mouths.

Even the duelists' subordinates came in for a handsome share of the public approbation: wherefore

Pudd'nhead Wilson was suddenly become a man of consequence. When asked to run for the

mayoralty Saturday night, he was risking defeat, but Sunday morning found him a made man and

The twins were prodigiously great now; the town took them to its bosom with enthusiasm. Day after

day, and night after night, they went dining and visiting from house to house, making friends,

enlarging and solidifying their popularity, and charming and surprising all with their musical

prodigies, and now and then heightening the effects with samples of what they could do in other

directions, out of their stock of rare and curious accomplishments. They were so pleased that they

gave the regulation thirty days' notice, the required preparation for citizenship, and resolved to

finish their days in this pleasant place. That was the climax. The delighted community rose as one

man and applauded; and when the twins were asked to stand for seats in the forthcoming

aldermanic board, and consented, the public contentment was rounded and complete.

Tom Driscoll was not happy over these things; they sunk deep, and hurt all the way down. He

hated the one twin for kicking him, and the other one for being the kicker's brother.

Now and then the people wondered why nothing was heard of the raider, or of the stolen knife or

the other plunder, but nobody was able to throw any light on that matter. Nearly a week had drifted

On Sunday Constable Blake and Pudd'nhead Wilson met on the street, and Tom Driscoll joined

them in time to open their conversation for them. He said to Blake: "You are not looking well, Blake;

you seem to be annoyed about something. Has anything gone wrong in the detective business? I

believe you fairly and justifiably claim to have a pretty good reputation in that line, isn't it so?"

which made Blake feel good, and look it; but Tom added, "for a country detective"which made

"Yes, sir, I _have_ got a reputation; and it's as good as anybody's in the profession, too, country or

"Oh, I beg pardon; I didn't mean any offense. What I started out to ask was only about the old

woman that raided the town the stoopshouldered old woman, you know, that you said you were

going to catch; and I knew you would, too, because you have the reputation of never boasting,

"No, I haven't caught her. If anybody could have caught her, I could; but nobody couldn't, I don't

I am sorry, real sorryfor your sake; because, when it gets around that a detective has expressed

"Don't you worry, that's alldon't you worry; and as for the town, the town needn't worry either.

She's my meatmake yourself easy about that. I'm on her track; I've got clues that"

"That's good! Now if you could get an old veteran detective down from St. Louis to help you find out

"I'm plenty veteran enough myself, and I don't need anybody's help. I'll have her inside of a

"I suppose that will answeryes, that will answer. But I reckon she is pretty old, and old people

don't often outlive the cautious pace of the professional detective when he has got his clues

Blake's dull face flushed under this gibe, but before he could set his retort in order Tom had turned

Wilson answeredand rather uncomfortably, to judge by his hesitating fashion of delivering

"Oh, nothing. Only I thought you had struck out a new idea, and invented a scheme that was going

to revolutionize the timeworn and ineffectual methods of the" He stopped, and turned to Blake,

who was happy now that another had taken his place on the gridiron. "Blake, didn't you understand

him to intimate that it wouldn't be necessary for you to hunt the old woman down?"

'B'George, he said he'd have thief and swag both inside of three days he did, by hokey! and

that's just about a week ago. Why, I said at the time that no thief and no thief's pal was going to try

to pawn or sell a thing where he knowed the pawnbroker could get both rewards by taking HIM into

"You'd change your mind," said Wilson, with irritated bluntness, "if you knew the entire scheme

"Well," said the constable, pensively, "I had the idea that it wouldn't work, and up to now I'm right

"Very well, then, let it stand at that, and give it a further show. It has worked at least as well as your

The constable hadn't anything handy to hit back with, so he discharged a discontented sniff, and

After the night that Wilson had partly revealed his scheme at his house, Tom had tried for several

days to guess out the secret of the rest of it, but had failed. Then it occurred to him to give

Roxana's smarter head a chance at it. He made up a supposititious0z H case, and laid it before

her. She thought it over, and delivered her verdict upon it. Tom said to himself, "She's hit it, sure!"

He thought he would test that verdict now, and watch Wilson's face; so he said reflectively:

"Wilson, you're not a foola fact of recent discovery. Whatever your scheme was, it had sense in

it, Blake's opinion to the contrary notwithstanding. I don't ask you to reveal it, but I will suppose a

casea case which you will answer as a starting point for the real thing I am going to come at, and

that's all I want. You offered five hundred dollars for the knife, and five hundred for the thief. We will

suppose, for argument's sake, that the first reward is _advertised_ and the second offered by

"By Jackson, he's got you, Pudd'nhead! Now why couldn't I or _any_ fool have thought of that?"

Wilson said to himself, "Anybody with a reasonably good head would have thought of it. I am not

surprised that Blake didn't detect it; I am only surprised that Tom did. There is more to him than I

"Very well. The thief would not suspect that there was a trap, and he would bring or send the knife,

and say he bought it for a song, or found it in the road, or something like that, and try to collect the

"I think so," said Tom. "There can't be any doubt of it. Have you ever seen that knife?"

"What do you mean, Tom? What are you driving at?" asked Wilson, with a dawning sense of

"Look here, Wilson," said Blake, "Tom Driscoll's right, for a thousand dollarsif I had it."

Wilson's blood warmed a little, and he wondered if he had been played upon by those strangers; it

certainly had something of that look. But what could they gain by it? He threw out that suggestion.

"Gain? Oh, nothing that you would value, maybe. But they are strangers making their way in a new

community. Is it nothing to them to appear as pets of an Oriental princeat no expense? It is

nothing to them to be able to dazzle this poor town with thousanddollar rewardsat no expense?

Wilson, there isn't any such knife, or your scheme would have fetched it to light. Or if there is any

such knife, they've got it yet. I believe, myself, that they've seen such a knife, for Angelo pictured it

been inventing it, and of course I can't swear that they've never had it; but this I'll go bail forif

"You find the old woman, Blake, and if she can't furnish the knife, go and search the twins!"

Tom sauntered away. Wilson felt a good deal depressed. He hardly knew what to think. He was

loath to withdraw his faith from the twins, and was resolved not to do it on the present indecisive

"Well, Pudd'nhead, I'm bound to say I put it up the way Tom does. They hadn't the knife; or if they

"I believe they had it; if it had been stolen, the scheme would have restored it, that is certain. And

Tom had no purpose in his mind when he encountered those two men. When he began his talk he

hoped to be able to gall them a little and get a trifle of malicious entertainment out of it. But when

he left, he left in great spirits, for he perceived that just by pure luck and no troublesome labor he

had accomplished several delightful things: he had touched both men on a raw spot and seen them

squirm; he had modified Wilson's sweetness for the twins with one small bitter taste that he

wouldn't be able to get out of his mouth right away; and, best of all, he had taken the hated twins

down a peg with the community; for Blake would gossip around freely, after the manner of

detectives, and within a week the town would be laughing at them in its sleeve for offering a gaudy

reward for a bauble which they either never possessed or hadn't lost. Tom was very well satisfied

Tom's behavior at home had been perfect during the entire week. His uncle and aunt had seen

"I've had something preying on my mind, uncle, and as I am going away, and might never see you

again, I can't bear it any longer. I made you believe I was afraid to fight that Italian adventurer. I had

to get out of it on some pretext or other, and maybe I chose badly, being taken unawares, but no

honorable person could consent to meet him in the field, knowing what I knew about him."

"It's perfectly true. Wilson detected it in his hand, by palmistry, and charged him with it, and

cornered him up so close that he had to confess; but both twins begged us on their knees to keep

the secret, and swore they would lead straight lives here; and it was all so pitiful that we gave our

word of honor never to expose them while they kept the promise. You would have done it yourself,

"You are right, my boy; I would. A man's secret is still his own property, and sacred, when it has

been surprised out of him like that. You did well, and I am proud of you." Then he added

mournfully, "But I wish I could have been saved the shame of meeting an assassin on the field on

"It couldn't be helped, uncle. If I had known you were going to challenge him, I should have felt

obliged to sacrifice my pledged word in order to stop it, but Wilson couldn't be expected to do

"Oh, no, Wilson did right, and is in no way to blame. Tom, Tom, you have lifted a heavy load from

my heart; I was stung to the very soul when I seemed to have discovered that I had a coward in my

"Oh, I know it, poor boy, I know it. And I can understand how much it has cost you to remain under

that unjust stigma to this time. But it is all right now, and no harm is done. You have restored my

The old man sat awhile plunged in thought; then he looked up with a satisfied light in his eye, and

said: "That this assassin should have put the affront upon me of letting me meet him on the field of

honor as if he were a gentleman is a matter which I will presently settlebut not now. I will not

shoot him until after election. I see a way to ruin them both before; I will attend to that first. Neither

of them shall be elected, that I promise. You are sure that the fact that he is an assassin has not

"It will be a good card. I will fling a hint at it from the stump on the polling day. It will sweep the

"That and outside work among the voters will, to a certainty. I want you to come down here by and

by and work privately among the ragtag and bobtail. You shall spend money among them; I will

Another point scored against the detested twins! Really it was a great day for Tom. He was

"You know that wonderful Indian knife that the twins have been making such a todo about? Well,

there's no track or trace of it yet; so the town is beginning to sneer and gossip and laugh. Half the

people believe they never had any such knife, the other half believe they had it and have got it still.

Yes, Tom's blemishless week had restored him to the favor of his aunt and uncle.

His mother was satisfied with him, too. Privately, she believed she was coming to love him, but she

did not say so. She told him to go along to St. Louis now, and she would get ready and follow. Then

"Dah now! I's agwine to make you walk as straight as a string, Chambers, en so I's bown, you ain't

gwine to git no bad example out o' yo' mammy. I tole you you couldn't go into no bad comp'ny.

Well, you's gwine into my comp'ny, en I's gwine to fill de bill. Now, den, trot along, trot along!"

Tom went aboard one of the big transient boats that night with his heavy satchel of miscellaneous

plunder, and slept the sleep of the unjust, which is serener and sounder than the other kind, as we

know by the hangingeve history of a million rascals. But when he got up in the morning, luck was

against him again: a brother thief had robbed him while he slept, and gone ashore at some

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal

We all know about the habits of the ant, we know all about the habits of the bee, but we know

nothing at all about the habits of the oyster. It seems almost certain that we have been choosing

When Roxana arrived, she found her son in such despair and misery that her heart was touched

and her motherhood rose up strong in her. He was ruined past hope now; his destruction would be

immediate and sure, and he would be an outcast and friendless. That was reason enough for a

mother to love a child; so she loved him, and told him so. It made him wince, secretly for she

was a "nigger." That he was one himself was far from reconciling him to that despised race.

Roxana poured out endearments upon him, to which he responded uncomfortably, but as well as

he could. And she tried to comfort him, but that was not possible. These intimacies quickly became

horrible to him, and within the hour began to try to get up courage enough to tell her so, and require

that they be discontinued or very considerably modified. But he was afraid of her; and besides,

there came a lull now, for she had begun to think. She was trying to invent a saving plan. Finally

she started up, and said she had found a way out. Tom was almost suffocated by the joy of this

"Here is de plan, en she'll win, sure. I's a nigger, en nobody ain't gwine to doubt it dat hears me

Tom was dazed. He was not sure he had heard aright. He was dumb for a moment; then he said:

"Ain't you my chile? En does you know anything dat a mother won't do for her chile? Day ain't

nothin' a white mother won't do for her chile. Who made 'em so? De Lord done it. En who made de

niggers? De Lord made 'em. In de inside, mothers is all de same. De good lord he made 'em so. I's

gwine to be sole into slavery, en in a year you's gwine to buy yo' ole mammy free ag'in. I'll show

"Say it ag'in! En keep on sayin' it! It's all de pay a body kin want in dis worl', en it's mo' den enough.

Laws bless you, honey, when I's slav' aroun', en dey 'buses me, if I knows you's asayin' dat, 'way

"I DO say it again, Mammy, and I'll keep on saying it, too. But how am I going to sell you? You're

"Much diff'rence dat make! White folks ain't partic'lar. De law kin sell me now if dey tell me to leave

de state in six months en I don't go. You draw up a paperbill o' sale en put it 'way off yonder,

down in de middle o' Kaintuck somers, en sign some names to it, en say you'll sell me cheap 'ca'se

you's hard up; you'll find you ain't gwine to have no trouble. You take me up de country a piece, en

sell me on a farm; dem people ain't gwine to ask no questions if I's a bargain."

Tom forged a bill of sale and sold him mother to an Arkansas cotton planter for a trifle over six

hundred dollars. He did not want to commit this treachery, but luck threw the man in his way, and

this saved him the necessity of going upcountry to hunt up a purchaser, with the added risk of

having to answer a lot of questions, whereas this planter was so pleased with Roxy that he asked

next to none at all. Besides, the planter insisted that Roxy wouldn't know where she was, at first,

So Tom argued with himself that it was an immense advantaged for Roxy to have a master who

was pleased with her, as this planter manifestly was. In almost no time his flowing reasonings

carried him to the point of even half believing he was doing Roxy a splendid surreptitious service in

selling her "down the river." And then he kept diligently saying to himself all the time: "It's for only a

year. In a year I buy her free again; she'll keep that in mind, and it'll reconcile her." Yes; the little

deception could do no harm, and everything would come out right and pleasant in the end, anyway.

By agreement, the conversation in Roxy's presence was all about the man's "upcountry" farm, and

how pleasant a place it was, and how happy the slaves were there; so poor Roxy was entirely

deceived; and easily, for she was not dreaming that her own son could be guilty of treason to a

mother who, in voluntarily going into slaveryslavery of any kind, mild or severe, or of any

duration, brief or longwas making a sacrifice for him compared with which death would have

been a poor and commonplace one. She lavished tears and loving caresses upon him privately,

and then went away with her owner went away brokenhearted, and yet proud to do it.

Tom scored his accounts, and resolved to keep to the very letter of his reform, and never to put that

will in jeopardy again. He had three hundred dollars left. According to his mother's plan, he was to

put that safely away, and add her half of his pension to it monthly. In one year this fund would buy

For a whole week he was not able to sleep well, so much the villainy which he had played upon his

trusting mother preyed upon his rag of conscience; but after that he began to get comfortable

The boat bore Roxy away from St. Louis at four in the afternoon, and she stood on the lower guard

abaft the paddle box and watched Tom through a blur of tears until he melted into the throng of

people and disappeared; then she looked no more, but sat there on a coil of cable crying till far into

the night. When she went to her foul steerage bunk at last, between the clashing engines, it was

It had been imagined that she "would not know," and would think she was traveling upstream. She!

Why, she had been steamboating for years. At dawn she got up and went listlessly and sat down

on the cable coil again. She passed many a snag whose "break" could have told her a thing to

break her heart, for it showed a current moving in the same direction that the boat was going; but

her thoughts were elsewhere, and she did not notice. But at last the roar of a bigger and nearer

break than usual brought her out of her torpor, and she looked up, and her practiced eye fell upon

that telltale rush of water. For one moment her petrified gaze fixed itself there. Then her head

Even popularity can be overdone. In Rome, along at first, you are full of regrets that Michelangelo

JULY 4. Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than in all the other days of the year put

together. This proves, by the number left in stock, that one Fourth of July per year is now

The summer weeks dragged by, and then the political campaign opened opened in pretty warm

fashion, and waxed hotter and hotter daily. The twins threw themselves into it with their whole

heart, for their selflove was engaged. Their popularity, so general at first, had suffered afterward;

mainly because they had been TOO popular, and so a natural reaction had followed. Besides, it

had been diligently whispered around that it was curiousindeed, VERY curiousthat that

wonderful knife of theirs did not turn upIF it was so valuable, or IF it had ever existed. And with

the whisperings went chucklings and nudgings and winks, and such things have an effect. The

twins considered that success in the election would reinstate them, and that defeat would work

them irreparable damage. Therefore they worked hard, but not harder than Judge Driscoll and Tom

worked against them in the closing days of the canvass. Tom's conduct had remained so

letterperfect during two whole months now, that his uncle not only trusted him with money with

which to persuade voters, but trusted him to go and get it himself out of the safe in the private

The closing speech of the campaign was made by Judge Driscoll, and he made it against both of

the foreigners. It was disastrously effective. He poured out rivers of ridicule upon them, and forced

the big mass meeting to laugh and applaud. He scoffed at them as adventures, mountebanks,

sideshow riffraff, dime museum freaks; he assailed their showy titles with measureless derision; he

said they were backalley barbers disguised as nobilities, peanut peddlers masquerading as

gentlemen, organgrinders bereft of their brother monkey. At last he stopped and stood still. He

waited until the place had become absolutely silent and expectant, then he delivered his deadliest

shot; delivered it with icecold seriousness and deliberation, with a significant emphasis upon the

closing words: he said he believed that the reward offered for the lost knife was humbug and

bunkum, and that its owner would know where to find it whenever he should have occasion TO

Then he stepped from the stand, leaving a startled and impressive hush behind him instead of the

The strange remark flew far and wide over the town and made an extraordinary sensation.

Everybody was asking, "What could he mean by that?" And everybody went on asking that

question, but in vain; for the judge only said he knew what he was talking about, and stopped there;

Tom said he hadn't any idea what his uncle meant, and Wilson, whenever he was asked what he

thought it meant, parried the question by asking the questioner what HE thought it meant.

Wilson was elected, the twins were defeatedcrushed, in fact, and left forlorn and substantially

Dawson's Landing had a week of repose now, and it needed it. But it was in an expectant state, for

the air was full of rumors of a new duel. Judge Driscoll's election labors had prostrated him, but it

was said that as soon as he was well enough to entertain a challenge he would get one from Count

The brothers withdrew entirely from society, and nursed their humiliation in privacy. They avoided

the people, and wait out for exercise only late at night, when the streets were deserted.

Gratitude and treachery are merely the two extremities of the same procession. You have seen all

of it that is worth staying for when the band and the gaudy officials have gone by. Pudd'nhead

THANKSGIVING DAY. Let us all give humble, hearty, and sincere thanks now, but the turkeys. In

the island of Fiji they do not use turkeys; they use plumbers. It does not become you and me to

The Friday after the election was a rainy one in St. Louis. It rained all day long, and rained hard,

apparently trying its best to wash that sootblackened town white, but of course not succeeding.

Toward midnight Tom Driscoll arrived at his lodgings from the theater in the heavy downpour, and

closed his umbrella and let himself in; but when he would have shut the door, he found that there

was another person enteringdoubtless another lodger; this person closed the door and tramped

upstairs behind Tom. Tom found his door in the dark, and entered it, and turned up the gas. When

he faced about, lightly whistling, he saw the back of a man. The man was closing and locking his

door from him. His whistle faded out and he felt uneasy. The man turned around, a wreck of

shabby old clothes, sodden with rain and all adrip, and showed a black face under an old slouch

hat. Tom was frightened. He tried to order the man out, but the words refused to come, and the

"It was mean of me, and baseI know it; but I meant it for the best, I did indeedI can swear it."

Roxana stood awhile looking mutely down on him while he writhed in shame and went on

incoherently babbling selfaccusations mixed with pitiful attempts at explanation and palliation of

his crime; then she seated herself and took off her hat, and her unkept masses of long brown hair

"It warn't no fault o' yo'n dat dat ain't gray," she said sadly, noticing the hair.

"I know it, I know it! I'm a scoundrel. But I swear I meant it for the best. It was a mistake, of course,

Roxana began to cry softly, and presently words began to find their way out between her sobs.

"Sell a pusson down de riverDOWN DE RIVER!for de bes'! I wouldn't treat a dog so! I is all

broke down and en wore out now, en so I reckon it ain't in me to storm aroun' no mo', like I used to

when I 'uz trompled on en 'bused. I don't know but maybe it's so. Leastways, I's suffered so

These words should have touched Tom Driscoll, but if they did, that effect was obliterated by a

stronger oneone which removed the heavy weight of fear which lay upon him, and gave his

crushed spirit a most grateful rebound, and filled all his small soul with a deep sense of relief. But

he kept prudently still, and ventured no comment. There was a voiceless interval of some duration

now, in which no sounds were heard but the beating of the rain upon the panes, the sighing and

complaining of the winds, and now and then a muffled sob from Roxana. The sobs became more

"Shet down dat light a little. More. More yit. A pusson dat is hunted don't like de light. Dahdat'll

do. I kin see whah you is, en dat's enough. I's gwine to tell you de tale, en cut it jes as short as I

kin, en den I'll tell you what you's got to do. Dat man dat bought me ain't a bad man; he's good

enough, as planters goes; en if he could 'a' had his way I'd 'a' be'n a house servant in his fambly en

be'n comfortable: but his wife she was a Yank, en not right down good lookin', en she riz up agin

me straight off; so den dey sent me out to de quarter 'mongst de common fiel' han's. Dat woman

warn't satisfied even wid dat, but she worked up de overseer ag'in' me, she 'uz dat jealous en

hateful; so de overseer he had me out befo' day in de mawnin's en worked me de whole long day

as long as dey'uz any light to see by; en many's de lashin's I got 'ca'se I couldn't come up to de

work o' de stronges'. Dat overseer wuz a Yank too, outen New Englan', en anybody down South kin

tell you what dat mean. DEY knows how to work a nigger to death, en dey knows how to whale 'em

toowhale 'em till dey backs is welted like a washboard. 'Long at fust my marster say de good

word for me to de overseer, but dat 'uz bad for me; for de mistis she fine it out, en arter dat I jist

Tom's heart was firedwith fury against the planter's wife; and he said to himself, "But for that

meddlesome fool, everything would have gone all right." He added a deep and bitter curse against

The expression of this sentiment was fiercely written in his face, and stood thus revealed to Roxana

by a white glare of lightning which turned the somber dusk of the room into dazzling day at that

moment. She was pleasedpleased and grateful; for did not that expression show that her child

was capable of grieving for his mother's wrongs and a feeling resentment toward her

persecutors?a thing which she had been doubting. But her flash of happiness was only a flash,

and went out again and left her spirit dark; for she said to herself, "He sole me down de river he

can't feel for a body long; dis'll pass en go." Then she took up her tale again.

"'Bout ten days ago I 'uz sayin' to myself dat I couldn't las' many mo' weeks I 'uz so wore out wid de

awful work en de lashin's, en so downhearted en misable. En I didn't care no mo', nutherlife

warn't wuth noth'n' to me, if I got to go on like dat. Well, when a body is in a frame o' mine like dat,

what do a body care what a body do? Dey was a little sickly nigger wench 'bout ten year ole dat 'uz

good to me, en hadn't no mammy, po' thing, en I loved her en she loved me; en she come out

whah I uz' workin' en she had a roasted tater, en tried to slip it to me robbin' herself, you see,

'ca'se she knowed de overseer didn't give me enough to eaten he ketched her at it, en giver her

a lick acrost de back wid his stick, which 'uz as thick as a broom handle, en she drop' screamin' on

de groun', en squirmin' en wallerin' aroun' in de dust like a spider dat's got crippled. I couldn't stan'

it. All de hellfire dat 'uz ever in my heart flame' up, en I snatch de stick outen his han' en laid him

flat. He laid dah moanin' en cussin', en all out of his head, you know, en de niggers 'uz plumb

sk'yred to death. Dey gathered roun' him to he'p him, en I jumped on his hoss en took out for de

river as tight as I could go. I knowed what dey would do wid me. Soon as he got well he would start

in en work me to death if marster let him; en if dey didn't do dat, they'd sell me furder down de river,

en dat's de same thing. so I 'lowed to drown myself en git out o' my troubles. It 'uz gitt'n' towards

dark. I 'uz at de river in two minutes. Den I see a canoe, en I says dey ain't no use to drown myself

tell I got to; so I ties de hoss in de edge o' de timber en shove out down de river, keepin' in under

de shelter o' de bluff bank en prayin' for de dark to shet down quick. I had a pow'ful good start,

'ca'se de big house 'uz three mile back f'om de river en on'y de work mules to ride dah on, en on'y

niggers ride 'em, en DEY warn't gwine to hurrydey'd gimme all de chance dey could. Befo' a

body could go to de house en back it would be long pas' dark, en dey couldn't track de hoss en fine

out which way I went tell mawnin', en de niggers would tell 'em all de lies dey could 'bout it.

"Well, de dark come, en I went on aspinnin' down de river. I paddled mo'n two hours, den I warn't

worried no mo', so I quit paddlin' en floated down de current, considerin' what I 'uz gwine to do if I

didn't have to drown myself. I made up some plans, en floated along, turnin' 'em over in my mine.

Well, when it 'uz a little pas' midnight, as I reckoned, en I had come fifteen or twenty mile, I see de

lights o' a steamboat layin' at de bank, whah dey warn't no town en no woodyard, en putty soon I

ketched de shape o' de chimbly tops ag'in' de stars, en den good gracious me, I 'most jumped out

o' my skin for joy! It 'uz de GRAN' MOGUL I 'uz chambermaid on her for eight seasons in de

Cincinnati en Orleans trade. I slid 'long pas'don't see nobody stirrin' nowhah hear 'em

ahammerin' away in de engine room, den I knowed what de matter wassome o' de machinery's

broke. I got asho' below de boat and turn' de canoe loose, den I goes 'long up, en dey 'uz jes one

plank out, en I step' 'board de boat. It 'uz pow'ful hot, deckhan's en roustabouts 'uz sprawled aroun'

asleep on de fo'cas'l', de second mate, Jim Bangs, he sot dah on de bitts wid his head down,

asleep'ca'se dat's de way de second mate stan' de cap'n's watch!en de ole watchman, Billy

Hatch, he 'uz anoddin' on de companionway;en I knowed 'em all; en, lan', but dey did look

good! I says to myself, I wished old marster'd come along NOW en try to take mebless yo' heart,

I's 'mong frien's, I is. So I tromped right along 'mongst 'em, en went up on de b'iler deck en 'way

back aft to de ladies' cabin guard, en sot down dah in de same cheer dat I'd sot in 'mos' a hund'd

"In 'bout an hour I heard de ready bell jingle, en den de racket begin. Putty soon I hear de gong

strike. 'Set her back on de outside,' I says to myself. 'I reckon I knows dat music!' I hear de gong

ag'in. 'Come ahead on de inside,' I says. Gong ag'in. 'Stop de outside.' gong ag'in. 'Come ahead on

de outside now we's pinted for Sent Louis, en I's outer de woods en ain't got to drown myself at

all.' I knowed de MOGUL 'uz in de Sent Louis trade now, you see. It 'uz jes fair daylight when we

passed our plantation, en I seed a gang o' niggers en white folks huntin' up en down de sho', en

troublin' deyselves a good deal 'bout me; but I warn't troublin' myself none 'bout dem.

"'Bout dat time Sally Jackson, dat used to be my second chambermaid en 'uz head chambermaid

now, she come out on de guard, en 'uz pow'ful glad to see me, en so 'uz all de officers; en I tole

'em I'd got kidnapped en sole down de river, en dey made me up twenty dollahs en give it to me, en

Sally she rigged me out wid good clo'es, en when I got here I went straight to whah you used to

wuz, en den I come to dis house, en dey say you's away but 'spected back every day; so I didn't

"Well, las' Monday I 'uz pass'n by one o' dem places in fourth street whah deh sticks up runaway

nigger bills, en he'ps to ketch 'em, en I seed my marster! I 'mos' flopped down on de groun', I felt so

gone. He had his back to me, en 'uz talkin' to de man en givin' him some billsnigger bills, I

reckon, en I's de nigger. He's offerin' a rewarddat's it. Ain't I right, don't you reckon?"

Tom had been gradually sinking into a state of ghastly terror, and he said to himself, now: "I'm lost,

no matter what turn things take! This man has said to me that he thinks there was something

suspicious about that sale. he said he had a letter from a passenger on the GRAND MOGUL

saying that Roxy came here on that boat and that everybody on board knew all about the case; so

he says that her coming here instead of flying to a free state looks bad for me, and that if I don't find

her for him, and that pretty soon, he will make trouble for me. I never believed that story; I couldn't

believe she would be so dead to all motherly instincts as to come here, knowing the risk she would

run of getting me into irremediable trouble. And after all, here she is! And I stupidly swore I would

help find her, thinking it was a perfectly safe thing to promise. If I venture to deliver her up,

sheshebut how can I help myself? I've got to do that or pay the money, and where's the

money to come from? IIwell, I should think that if he would swear to treat her kindly

hereafter and she says, herself, that he is a good manand if he would swear to never allow

A flash of lightning exposed Tom's pallid face, drawn and rigid with these worrying thoughts.

"Turn up dat light! I want to see yo' face better. Dah now lemme look at you. Chambers, you's as

"Hewell, he thought he was. That is, he hoped he was. This is the bill you saw." He took it out of

She was panting with excitement, and there was a dusky glow in her eyes that Tom could not

translate with certainty, but there seemed to be something threatening about it. The handbill had

the usual rude woodcut of a turbaned Negro woman running, with the customary bundle on a stick

over her shoulder, and the heading in bold type, "$100 REWARD." Tom read the bill aloud at

least the part that described Roxana and named the master and his St. Louis address and the

address of the Fourth street agency; but he left out the item that applicants for the reward might

Tom had folded it and was putting it in his pocket. He felt a chilly streak creeping down his back,

"The bill? Why, it isn't any use to you, you can't read it. What do you want with it?"

"Gimme de bill!" Tom gave it to her, but with a reluctance which he could not entirely disguise. "Did

Tom did it. Roxana put the bill carefully away in her pocket, with her eyes fixed upon Tom's face all

"I don't knowbut you is. Dat's my opinion, anyways. But nemmine 'bout dat. When I seed dat

man I 'uz dat sk'yerd dat I could sca'cely wobble home. Den I give a nigger man a dollar for dese

clo'es, en I ain't be'in in a house sence, night ner day, till now. I blacked my face en laid hid in de

cellar of a ole house dat's burnt down, daytimes, en robbed de sugar hogsheads en grain sacks on

de wharf, nights, to git somethin' to eat, en never dast to try to buy noth'n', en I's 'mos' starved. En I

never dast to come near dis place till dis rainy night, when dey ain't no people roun' sca'cely. But

tonight I be'n astanin' in de dark alley ever sence night come, waitin' for you to go by. En here I

Tom cursed himself for making that stupid blunder, and tried to rectify it by saying he remember

"Now den! I's gwine to ask you a question, en I wants to know how you's gwine to git aroun' it. You

knowed he 'uz arter me; en if you run off, 'stid o' stayin' here to he'p him, he'd know dey 'uz

somethin' wrong 'bout dis business, en den he would inquire 'bout you, en dat would take him to yo'

uncle, en yo' uncle would read de bill en see dat you be'n sellin' a free nigger down de river, en you

know HIM, I reckon! He'd t'ar up de will en kick you outen de house. Now, den, you answer me dis

question: hain't you tole dat man dat I would be sho' to come here, en den you would fix it so he

Tom recognized that neither lies nor arguments could help him any longerhe was in a vise, with

the screw turned on, and out of it there was no budging. His face began to take on an ugly look,

"Well, what could I do? You see, yourself, that I was in his grip and couldn't get out."

"What could you do? You could be Judas to yo' own mother to save yo' wuthless hide! Would

anybody b'lieve it? Noa dog couldn't! You is de lowdownest orneriest hound dat was ever pup'd

"Now I'll tell you what you's gwine to do. You's gwine to give dat man de money dat you's got laid

up, en make him wait till you kin go to de judge en git de res' en buy me free agin."

"Thunder! What are you thinking of? Go and ask him for three hundred dollars and odd? What

"You'll tell him you's sole me to pay yo' gamblin' debts en dat you lied to me en was a villain, en dat

"Why, you've gone stark mad! He would tear the will to shreads in a minutedon't you know that?"

"I don't b'lieve nothin' 'bout itI KNOWS you's agoin'. I knows it 'ca'se you knows dat if you don't

raise dat money I'll go to him myself, en den he'll sell YOU down de river, en you kin see how you

Tom rose, trembling and excited, and there was an evil light in his eye. He strode to the door and

said he must get out of this suffocating place for a moment and clear his brain in the fresh air so

that he could determine what to do. The door wouldn't open. Roxy smiled grimly, and said:

"I's got the key, honeyset down. You needn't cle'r up yo' brain none to fine out what you gwine to

do_I_ knows what you's gwine to do." Tom sat down and began to pass his hands through his

"You done it. Gwine out to cle'r yo' brain! In de fust place you ain't got none to cle'r, en in de second

place yo' ornery eye tole on you. You's de lowdownest hound dat ever but I done told you dat

befo'. Now den, dis is Friday. You kin fix it up wid dat man, en tell him you's gwine away to git de

res' o' de money, en dat you'll be back wid it nex' Tuesday, or maybe Wednesday. You

"En when you gits de new bill o' sale dat sells me to my own self, take en send it in de mail to Mr.

Pudd'nhead Wilson, en write on de back dat he's to keep it tell I come. You understan'?"

"Beca'se you's gwine to see me home to de wharf. You see dis knife? I's toted it aroun' sence de

day I seed dat man en bought dese clo'es en it. If he ketch me, I's gwine to kill myself wid it. Now

start along, en go sof', en lead de way; en if you gives a sign in dis house, or if anybody comes up

to you in de street, I's gwine to jam it right into you. Chambers, does you b'lieve me when I says

They were not followed. Tom trembled every time a late straggler brushed by them on the street,

and half expected to feel the cold steel in his back. Roxy was right at his heels and always in reach.

After tramping a mile they reached a wide vacancy on the deserted wharves, and in this dark and

As Tom trudged home his mind was full of dreary thoughts and wild plans; but at last he said to

"There is but the one way out. I must follow her plan. But with a variationI will not ask for the

It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races.

Dawson's Landing was comfortably finishing its season of dull repose and waiting patiently for the

duel. Count Luigi was waiting, too; but not patiently, rumor said. Sunday came, and Luigi insisted

on having his challenge conveyed. Wilson carried it. Judge Driscoll declined to fight with an

Elsewhere, of course, he would be ready. Wilson tried to convince him that if he had been present

himself when Angelo told him about the homicide committed by Luigi, he would not have

considered the act discreditable to Luigi; but the obstinate old man was not to be moved.

Wilson went back to his principal and reported the failure of his mission. Luigi was incensed, and

asked how it could be that the old gentleman, who was by no means dullwitted, held his trifling

nephew's evidence in inferences to be of more value than Wilson's. But Wilson laughed, and said:

"That is quite simple; that is easily explicable. I am not his dollhis babyhis infatuation: his

nature is. The judge and his late wife never had any children. The judge and his wife were past

middle age when this treasure fell into their lap. One must make allowances for a parental instinct

that has been starving for twentyfive or thirty years. It is famished, it is crazed wit hunger by that

time, and will be entirely satisfied with anything that comes handy; its taste is atrophied, it can't tell

mud cat from shad. A devil born to a young couple is measurably recognizable by them as a devil

before long, but a devil adopted by an old couple is an angel to them, and remains so, through thick

and thin. Tom is this old man's angel; he is infatuated with him. Tom can persuade him into things

which other people can'tnot all things; I don't mean that, but a good manyparticularly one

class of things: the things that create or abolish personal partialities or prejudices in the old man's

mind. The old man liked both of you. Tom conceived a hatred for you. That was enough; it turned

the old man around at once. The oldest and strongest friendship must go to the ground when one

"It ain't philosophy at allit's a fact. And there is something pathetic and beautiful about it, too. I

think there is nothing more pathetic than to see one of these poor old childless couples taking a

menagerie of yelping little worthless dogs to their hearts; and then adding some cursing and

squawking parrots and a jackassvoiced macaw; and next a couple of hundred screeching

songbirds, and presently some fetid guinea pigs and rabbits, and a howling colony of cats. It is all a

groping and ignorant effort to construct out of base metal and brass filings, so to speak, something

to take the place of that golden treasure denied them by Nature, a child. But this is a digression.

The unwritten law of this region requires you to kill Judge Driscoll on sight, and he and the

community will expect that attention at your handsthough of course your own death by his bullet

"The judge is still a little used up by his campaign work, and will not get out for a day or so; but

About eleven at night the twins went out for exercise, and started on a long stroll in the veiled

Tom Driscoll had landed at Hackett's Store, two miles below Dawson's, just about half an hour

earlier, the only passenger for that lonely spot, and had walked up the shore road and entered

Judge Driscoll's house without having encountered anyone either on the road or under the roof.

He pulled down his window blinds and lighted his candle. He laid off his coat and hat and began his

preparations. He unlocked his trunk and got his suit of girl's clothes out from under the male attire

in it, and laid it by. Then he blacked his face with burnt cork and put the cork in his pocket. His plan

was to slip down to his uncle's private sitting room below, pass into the bedroom, steal the safe key

from the old gentleman's clothes, and then go back and rob the safe. He took up his candle to start.

His courage and confidence were high, up to this point, but both began to waver a little now.

Suppose he should make a noise, by some accident, and get caught say, in the act of opening

the safe? Perhaps it would be well to go armed. He took the Indian knife from its hiding place, and

felt a pleasant return of his wandering courage. He slipped stealthily down the narrow stair, his hair

rising and his pulses halting at the slightest creak. When he was halfway down, he was disturbed to

perceive that the landing below was touched by a faint glow of light. What could that mean? Was

his uncle still up? No, that was not likely; he must have left his night taper there when he went to

bed. Tom crept on down, pausing at every step to listen. He found the door standing open, and

glanced it. What he saw pleased him beyond measure. His uncle was asleep on the sofa; on a

small table at the head of the sofa a lamp was burning low, and by it stood the old man's small

cashbox, closed. Near the box was a pile of bank notes and a piece of paper covered with figured

in pencil. The safe door was not open. Evidently the sleeper had wearied himself with work upon

Tom set his candle on the stairs, and began to make his way toward the pile of notes, stooping low

as he went. When he was passing his uncle, the old man stirred in his sleep, and Tom stopped

instantlystopped, and softly drew the knife from its sheath, with his heart thumping, and his eyes

fastened upon his benefactor's face. After a moment or two he ventured forward againone

stepreached for his prize and seized it, dropping the knife sheath. Then he felt the old man's

strong grip upon him, and a wild cry of "Help! help!" rang in his ear. Without hesitation he drove the

knife homeand was free. Some of the notes escaped from his left hand and fell in the blood on

the floor. He dropped the knife and snatched them up and started to fly; transferred them to his left

hand, and seized the knife again, in his fright and confusion, but remembered himself and flung it

He jumped for the stairfoot, and closed the door behind him; and as he snatched his candle and

fled upward, the stillness of the night was broken by the sound of urgent footsteps approaching the

house. In another moment he was in his room, and the twins were standing aghast over the body of

Tom put on his coat, buttoned his hat under it, threw on his suit of girl's clothes, dropped the veil,

blew out his light, locked the room door by which he had just entered, taking the key, passed

through his other door into the black hall, locked that door and kept the key, then worked his way

along in the dark and descended the black stairs. He was not expecting to meet anybody, for all

interest was centered in the other part of the house now; his calculation proved correct. By the time

he was passing through the backyard, Mrs. Pratt, her servants, and a dozen halfdressed

neighbors had joined the twins and the dead, and accessions were still arriving at the front door.

As Tom, quaking as with a palsy, passed out at the gate, three women came flying from the house

on the opposite side of the lane. They rushed by him and in at the gate, asking him what the trouble

was there, but not waiting for an answer. Tom said to himself, "Those old maids waited to

dressthey did the same thing the night Stevens's house burned down next door." In a few

minutes he was in the haunted house. He lighted a candle and took off his girlclothes. There was

blood on him all down his left side, and his right hand was red with the stains of the bloodsoaked

notes which he has crushed in it; but otherwise he was free from this sort of evidence. He cleansed

his hand on the straw, and cleaned most of the smut from his face. Then he burned the male and

female attire to ashes, scattered the ashes, and put on a disguise proper for a tramp. He blew out

his light, went below, and was soon loafing down the river road with the intent to borrow and use

one of Roxy's devices. He found a canoe and paddled down downstream, setting the canoe adrift

as dawn approached, and making his way by land to the next village, where he kept out of sight till

a transient steamer came along, and then took deck passage for St. Louis. He was ill at ease

Dawson's Landing was behind him; then he said to himself, "All the detectives on earth couldn't

trace me now; there's not a vestige of a clue left in the world; that homicide will take its place with

the permanent mysteries, and people won't get done trying to guess out the secret of it for fifty

In St. Louis, next morning, he read this brief telegram in the papersdated at Dawson's Landing:

Judge Driscoll, an old and respected citizen, was assassinated here about midnight by a profligate

Italian nobleman or a barber on account of a quarrel growing out of the recent election. The

"One of the twins!" soliloquized Tom. "How lucky! It is the knife that has done him this grace. We

never know when fortune is trying to favor us. I actually cursed Pudd'nhead Wilson in my heart for

Tom was now rich and independent. He arranged with the planter, and mailed to Wilson the new

Have seen the awful news in the papers and am almost prostrated with grief. Shall start by packet

When Wilson reached the house of mourning and had gathered such details as Mrs. Pratt and the

rest of the crowd could tell him, he took command as mayor, and gave orders that nothing should

be touched, but everything left as it was until Justice Robinson should arrive and take the proper

measures as corner. He cleared everybody out of the room but the twins and himself. The sheriff

soon arrived and took the twins away to jail. Wilson told them to keep heart, and promised to do it

best in their defense when the case should come to trial. Justice Robinson came presently, and

with him Constable Blake. They examined the room thoroughly. They found the knife and the

sheath. Wilson noticed that there were fingerprints on the knife's handle. That pleased him, for the

twins had required the earliest comers to make a scrutiny of their hands and clothes, and neither

these people nor Wilson himself had found any bloodstains upon them. Could there be a possibility

that the twins had spoken the truth when they had said they found the man dead when they ran into

the house in answer to the cry for help? He thought of that mysterious girl at once. But this was not

the sort of work for a girl to be engaged in. No matter; Tom Driscoll's room must be examined.

After the coroner's jury had viewed the body and its surroundings, Wilson suggested a search

upstairs, and he went along. The jury forced an entrance to Tom's room, but found nothing, of

The coroner's jury found that the homicide was committed by Luigi, and that Angelo was accessory

The town was bitter against he misfortunates, and for the first few days after the murder they were

in constant danger of being lynched. The grand jury presently indicted Luigi for murder in the first

degree, and Angelo as accessory before the fact. The twins were transferred from the city jail to the

Wilson examined the finger marks on the knife handle and said to himself, "Neither of the twins

made those marks." Then manifestly there was another person concerned, either in his own

But who could it be? That, he must try to find out. The safe was not opened, the cashbox was

closed, and had three thousand dollars in it. Then robbery was not the motive, and revenge was.

Where had the murdered man an enemy except Luigi? There was but that one person in the world

The mysterious girl! The girl was a great trial to Wilson. If the motive had been robbery, the girl

might answer; but there wasn't any girl that would want to take this old man's life for revenge. He

Wilson had perfect tracings of the finger marks of the knife handle; and among his glass records he

had a great array of fingerprints of women and girls, collected during the last fifteen or eighteen

years, but he scanned them in vain, they successfully withstood every test; among them were no

The presence of the knife on the stage of the murder was a worrying circumstance for Wilson. A

week previously he had as good as admitted to himself that he believed Luigi had possessed such

a knife, and that he still possessed it notwithstanding his pretense that it had been stolen. And now

here was the knife, and with it the twins. Half the town had said the twins were humbugging when

the claimed they had lost their knife, and now these people were joyful, and said, "I told you so!"

If their fingerprints had been on the handlebut useless to bother any further about that; the

Wilson refused to suspect Tom; for first, Tom couldn't murder anybodyhe hadn't character

enough; secondly, if he could murder a person he wouldn't select his doting benefactor and nearest

relative; thirdly, selfinterest was in the way; for while the uncle lived, Tom was sure of a free

support and a chance to get the destroyed will revived again, but with the uncle gone, that chance

was gone too. It was true the will had really been revived, as was now discovered, but Tom could

not have been aware of it, or he would have spoken of it, in his native talky, unsecretive way.

Finally, Tom was in St. Louis when the murder was done, and got the news out of the morning

journals, as was shown by his telegram to his aunt. These speculations were umemphasized

sensations rather than articulated thoughts, for Wilson would have laughed at the idea of seriously

Wilson regarded the case of the twins as desperatein fact, about hopeless. For he argued that if

a confederate was not found, an enlightened Missouri jury would hang them; sure; if a confederate

was found, that would not improve the matter, but simply furnish one more person for the sheriff to

hang. Nothing could save the twins but the discovery of a person who did the murder on his sole

personal accountan undertaking which had all the aspect of the impossible. Still, the person who

made the fingerprints must be sought. The twins might have no case WITH them, but they certainly

So Wilson mooned around, thinking, thinking, guessing, guessing, day and night, and arriving

nowhere. Whenever he ran across a girl or a woman he was not acquainted with, he got her

fingerprints, on one pretext or another; and they always cost him a sigh when he got home, for they

As to the mysterious girl, Tom swore he knew no such girl, and did not remember ever seeing a girl

wearing a dress like the one described by Wilson. He admitted that he did not always lock his

room, and that sometimes the servants forgot to lock the house doors; still, in his opinion the girl

must have made but few visits or she would have been discovered. When Wilson tried to connect

her with the stealing raid, and thought she might have been the old woman' confederate, if not the

very thief disguised as an old woman, Tom seemed stuck, and also much interested, and said he

would keep a sharp eye out for this person or persons, although he was afraid that she or they

would be too smart to venture again into a town where everybody would now be on the watch for a

Everybody was pitying Tom, he looked so quiet and sorrowful, and seemed to feel his great loss so

deeply. He was playing a part, but it was not all a part. The picture of his alleged uncle, as he had

last seen him, was before him in the dark pretty frequently, when he was away, and called again in

his dreams, when he was asleep. He wouldn't go into the room where the tragedy had happened.

This charmed the doting Mrs. Pratt, who realized now, "as she had never done before," she said,

what a sensitive and delicate nature her darling had, and how he adored his poor uncle.

Even the clearest and most perfect circumstantial evidence is likely to be at fault, after all, and

therefore ought to be received with great caution. Take the case of any pencil, sharpened by any

woman; if you have witnesses, you will find she did it with a knife; but if you take simply the aspect

The weeks dragged along, no friend visiting the jailed twins but their counsel and Aunt Patsy

Cooper, and the day of trial came at lastthe heaviest day in Wilson's life; for with all his tireless

diligence he had discovered no sign or trace of the missing confederate. "Confederate" was the

term he had long ago privately accepted for that personnot as being unquestionably the right

term, but as being the least possibly the right one, though he was never able to understand why the

twins did not vanish and escape, as the confederate had done, instead of remaining by the

The courthouse was crowded, of course, and would remain so to the finish, for not only in the town

itself, but in the country for miles around, the trial was the one topic of conversation among the

people. Mrs. Pratt, in deep mourning, and Tom with a weed on his hat, had seats near Pembroke

Howard, the public prosecutor, and back of them sat a great array of friends of the family. The twins

had but one friend present to keep their counsel in countenance, their poor old sorrowing landlady.

She sat near Wilson, and looked her friendliest. In the "nigger corner" sat Chambers; also Roxy,

with good clothes on, and her bill of sale in her pocket. It was her most precious possession, and

she never parted with it, day or night. Tom had allowed her thirtyfive dollars a month ever since he

came into his property, and had said the he and she ought to be grateful to the twins for making

them rich; but had roused such a temper in her by this speech that he did not repeat the argument

afterward. She said the old judge had treated her child a thousand times better than he deserved,

and had never done her an unkindness in his life; so she hated these outlandish devils for killing

him, and shouldn't ever sleep satisfied till she saw them hanged for it. She was here to watch the

trial now, and was going to lift up just one "hooraw" over it if the county judge put her in jail a year

for it. She gave her turbaned head a toss and said, "When dat verdic' comes, I's gwine to lif' dat

Pembroke Howard briefly sketched the state's case. He said he would show by a chain of

circumstantial evidence without break or fault in it anywhere, that the principal prisoner at the bar

committed the murder; that the motive was partly revenge, and partly a desire to take his own life

out of jeopardy, and that his brother, by his presence, was a consenting accessory to the crime; a

crime which was the basest known to the calendar of human misdeedsassassination; that it was

conceived by the blackest of hearts and consummated by the cowardliest of hands; a crime which

had broken a loving sister's heart, blighted the happiness of a young nephew who was as dear as a

son, brought inconsolable grief to many friends, and sorrow and loss to the whole community. The

utmost penalty of the outraged law would be exacted, and upon the accused, now present at the

bar, that penalty would unquestionably be executed. He would reserve further remark until his

He was strongly moved, and so also was the whole house; Mrs. Pratt and several other women

were weeping when he sat down, and many an eye that was full of hate was riveted upon the

Witness after witness was called by the state, and questioned at length; but the cross questioning

was brief. Wilson knew they could furnish nothing valuable for his side. People were sorry for

Several witnesses swore they heard Judge Driscoll say in his public speech that the twins would be

able to find their lost knife again when they needed it to assassinate somebody with. This was not

news, but now it was seen to have been sorrowfully prophetic, and a profound sensation quivered

The public prosecutor rose and said that it was within his knowledge, through a conversation held

with Judge Driscoll on the last day of his life, that counsel for the defense had brought him a

challenge from the person charged at the bar with murder; that he had refused to fight with a

confessed assassin "that is, on the field of honor," but had added significantly, that would would

be ready for him elsewhere. Presumably the person here charged with murder was warned that he

must kill or be killed the first time he should meet Judge Driscoll. If counsel for the defense chose to

let the statement stand so, he would not call him to the witness stand. Mr. Wilson said he would

offer no denial. [Murmurs in the house: "It is getting worse and worse for Wilson's case."]

Mrs. Pratt testified that she heard no outcry, and did not know what woke her up, unless it was the

sound of rapid footsteps approaching the front door. She jumped up and ran out in the hall just as

she was, and heard the footsteps flying up the front steps and then following behind her as she ran

to the sitting room. There she found the accused standing over her murdered brother. [Here she

broke down and sobbed. Sensation in the court.] Resuming, she said the persons entered behind

Crossexamined by Wilson, she said the twins proclaimed their innocence; declared that they had

been taking a walk, and had hurried to the house in response to a cry for help which was so loud

and strong that they had heard it at a considerable distance; that they begged her and the

gentlemen just mentioned to examine their hands and clotheswhich was done, and no blood

The finding of the knife was verified, the advertisement minutely describing it and offering a reward

for it was put in evidence, and its exact correspondence with that description proved. Then followed

Wilson said that he had three witnesses, the Misses Clarkson, who would testify that they met a

veiled young woman leaving Judge Driscoll's premises by the back gate a few minutes after the

cries for help were heard, and that their evidence, taken with certain circumstantial evidence which

he would call to the court's attention to, would in his opinion convince the court that there was still

one person concerned in this crime who had not yet been found, and also that a stay of

proceedings ought to be granted, in justice to his clients, until that person should be discovered. As

it was late, he would ask leave to defer the examination of his three witnesses until the next

The crowd poured out of the place and went flocking away in excited groups and couples, taking

the events of the session over with vivacity and consuming interest, and everybody seemed to

have had a satisfactory and enjoyable day except the accused, their counsel, and their old lady

In parting with the twins Aunt Patsy did attempt a goodnight with a gay pretense of hope and

Absolutely secure as Tom considered himself to be, the opening solemnities of the trial had

nevertheless oppressed him with a vague uneasiness, his being a nature sensitive to even the

smallest alarms; but from the moment that the poverty and weakness of Wilson's case lay exposed

to the court, he was comfortable once more, even jubilant. He left the courtroom sarcastically sorry

for Wilson. "The Clarksons met an unknown woman in the back lane," he said to himself, "THAT is

his case! I'll give him a century to find her ina couple of them if he likes. A woman who doesn't

exist any longer, and the clothes that gave her her sex burnt up and the ashes thrown away oh,

certainly, he'll find HER easy enough!" This reflection set him to admiring, for the hundredth time,

the shrewd ingenuities by which he had insured himself against detectionmore, against even

"Nearly always in cases like this there is some little detail or other overlooked, some wee little track

or trace left behind, and detection follows; but here there's not even the faintest suggestion of a

trace left. No more than a bird leaves when it flies through the airyes, through the night, you may

say. The man that can track a bird through the air in the dark and find that bird is the man to track

me out and find the judge's assassinno other need apply. And that is the job that has been laid

out for poor Pudd'nhead Wilson, of all people in the world! Lord, it will be pathetically funny to see

him grubbing and groping after that woman that don't exist, and the right person sitting under his

very nose all the time!" The more he thought the situation over, the more the humor of it struck him.

Finally he said, "I'll never let him hear the last of that woman. Every time I catch him in company, to

his dying day, I'll ask him in the guileless affectionate way that used to gravel him so when I

inquired how his unborn law business was coming along, 'Got on her track yethey,

Pudd'nhead?'" He wanted to laugh, but that would not have answered; there were people about,

and he was mourning for his uncle. He made up his mind that it would be good entertainment to

look in on Wilson that night and watch him worry over his barren law case and goad him with an

Wilson wanted no supper, he had no appetite. He got out all the fingerprints of girls and women in

his collection of records and pored gloomily over them an hour or more, trying to convince himself

that that troublesome girl's marks were there somewhere and had been overlooked. But it was not

so. He drew back his chair, clasped his hands over his head, and gave himself up to dull and arid

Tom Driscoll dropped in, an hour after dark, and said with a pleasant laugh as he took a seat:

"Hello, we've gone back to the amusements of our days of neglect and obscurity for consolation,

have we?" and he took up one of the glass strips and held it against the light to inspect it. "Come,

cheer up, old man; there's no use in losing your grip and going back to this child's play merely

because this big sunspot is drifting across your shiny new disk. It'll pass, and you'll be all right

"Oh, no," said Wilson, with a sigh, "I didn't expect that, but I can't believe Luigi killed your uncle,

and I feel very sorry for him. It makes me blue. And you would feel as I do, Tom, if you were not

"I don't know about that," and Tom's countenance darkened, for his memory reverted to his kicking.

"I owe them no good will, considering the brunet one's treatment of me that night. Prejudice or no

prejudice, Pudd'nhead, I don't like them, and when they get their deserts you're not going to find me

"Why, here's old Roxy's label! Are you going to ornament the royal palaces with nigger paw marks,

too? By the date here, I was seven months old when this was done, and she was nursing me and

her little nigger cub. There's a line straight across her thumbprint. How comes that?" and Tom held

"That is common," said the bored man, wearily. "Scar of a cut or a scratch, usually"and he took

All the blood sank suddenly out of his face; his hand quaked, and he gazed at the polished surface

Tom sprang for a glass of water and offered it, but Wilson shrank shuddering from him and said:

"No, no!take it away!" His breast was rising and falling, and he moved his head about in a dull

and wandering way, like a person who had been stunned. Presently he said, "I shall feel better

when I get to bed; I have been overwrought today; yes, and overworked for many days."

"Then I'll leave you and let you get to your rest. Good night, old man." But as Tom went out he

couldn't deny himself a small parting gibe: "Don't take it so hard; a body can't win every time; you'll

Wilson muttered to himself, "It is no lie to say I am sorry I have to begin with you, miserable dog

He braced himself up with a glass of cold whisky, and went to work again. He did not compare the

new finger marks unintentionally left by Tom a few minutes before on Roxy's glass with the tracings

of the marks left on the knife handle, there being no need for that (for his trained eye), but busied

himself with another matter, muttering from time to time, "Idiot that I was! Nothing but a GIRL

would do mea man in girl's clothes never occurred to me." First, he hunted out the plate

containing the fingerprints made by Tom when he was twelve years old, and laid it by itself; then he

brought forth the marks made by Tom's baby fingers when he was a suckling of seven months, and

placed these two plates with the one containing this subject's newly (and unconsciously) made

"Now the series is complete," he said with satisfaction, and sat down to inspect these things and

But his enjoyment was brief. He stared a considerable time at the three strips, and seemed

stupefied with astonishment. At last he put them down and said, "I can't make it out at all hang it,

He walked the floor for half an hour puzzling over his enigma, then he hunted out the other glass

He sat down and puzzled over these things a good while, but kept muttering, "It's no use; I can't

understand it. They don't tally right, and yet I'll swear the names and dates are right, and so of

course they OUGHT to tally. I never labeled one of these thing carelessly in my life. There is a most

He was tired out now, and his brains were beginning to clog. He said he would sleep himself fresh,

and then see what he could do with this riddle. He slept through a troubled and unrestful hour, then

unconsciousness began to shred away, and presently he rose drowsily to a sitting posture. "Now

what was that dream?" he said, trying to recall it. "What was that dream? It seemed to unravel that

He landed in the middle of the floor at a bound, without finishing the sentence, and ran and turned

up his light and seized his "records." He took a single swift glance at them and cried out:

"It's so! Heavens, what a revelation! And for twentythree years no man has ever suspected it!"

He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring the cabbages.

APRIL 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred

Wilson put on enough clothes for business purposes and went to work under a high pressure of

steam. He was awake all over. All sense of weariness had been swept away by the invigorating

refreshment of the great and hopeful discovery which he had made. He made fine and accurate

reproductions of a number of his "records," and then enlarged them on a scale of ten to one with

his pantograph. He did these pantograph enlargements on sheets of white cardboard, and made

each individual line of the bewildering maze of whorls or curves or loops which consisted of the

"pattern" of a "record" stand out bold and black by reinforcing it with ink. To the untrained eye the

collection of delicate originals made by the human finger on the glass plates looked about alike; but

when enlarged ten times they resembled the markings of a block of wood that has been sawed

across the grain, and the dullest eye could detect at a glance, and at a distance of many feet, that

no two of the patterns were alike. When Wilson had at last finished his tedious and difficult work, he

arranged his results according to a plan in which a progressive order and sequence was a principal

feature; then he added to the batch several pantograph enlargements which he had made from

The night was spent and the day well advanced now. By the time he had snatched a trifle of

breakfast, it was nine o'clock, and the court was ready to begin its sitting. He was in his place

Tom Driscoll caught a slight glimpse of the records, and nudged his nearest friend and said, with a

wink, "Pudd'nhead's got a rare eye to businessthinks that as long as he can't win his case it's at

least a noble good chance to advertise his window palace decorations without any expense."

Wilson was informed that his witnesses had been delayed, but would arrive presently; but he rose

and said he should probably not have occasion to make use of their testimony. [An amused

murmur ran through the room: "It's a clean backdown! he gives up without hitting a lick!"] Wilson

continued: "I have other testimony and better. [This compelled interest, and evoked murmurs of

surprise that had a detectable ingredient of disappointment in them.] If I seem to be springing this

evidence upon the court, I offer as my justification for this, that I did not discover its existence until

late last night, and have been engaged in examining and classifying it ever since, until half an hour

ago. I shall offer it presently; but first I with to say a few preliminary words.

"May it please the court, the claim given the front place, the claim most persistently urged, the claim

most strenuously and I may even say aggressively and defiantly insisted upon by the prosecution is

thisthat the person whose hand left the bloodstained fingerprints upon the handle of the Indian

knife is the person who committed the murder." Wilson paused, during several moments, to give

impressiveness to what he was about to say, and then added tranquilly, "WE GRANT THAT

It was an electrical surprise. No one was prepared for such an admission. A buzz of astonishment

rose on all sides, and people were heard to intimate that the overworked lawyer had lost his mind.

Even the veteran judge, accustomed as he was to legal ambushes and masked batteries in

criminal procedure, was not sure that his ears were not deceiving him, and asked counsel what it

was he had said. Howard's impassive face betrayed no sign, but his attitude and bearing lost

"We not only grant that claim, but we welcome it and strongly endorse it. Leaving that matter for the

present, we will now proceed to consider other points in the case which we propose to establish by

He had made up his mind to try a few hardy guesses, in mapping out his theory of the origin and

motive of the murder guesses designed to fill up gaps in itguesses which could help if they hit,

"To my mind, certain circumstances of the case before the court seem to suggest a motive for the

homicide quite different from the one insisted on by the state. It is my conviction that the motive

was not revenge, but robbery. It has been urged that the presence of the accused brothers in that

fatal room, just after notification that one of them must take the life of Judge Driscoll or lose his own

the moment the parties should meet, clearly signifies that the natural of selfpreservation moved

my clients to go there secretly and save Count Luigi by destroying his adversary.

"Then why did they stay there, after the deed was done? Mrs. Pratt had time, although she did not

hear the cry for help, but woke up some moments later, to run to that roomand there she found

these men standing and making no effort to escape. If they were guilty, they ought to have been

running out of the house at the same time that she was running to that room. If they had had such a

strong instinct toward selfpreservation as to move them to kill that unarmed man, what had

become of it now, when it should have been more alert than ever. Would any of us have remained

"Much stress has been laid upon the fact that the accused offered a very large reward for the knife

with which this murder was done; that no thief came forward to claim that extraordinary reward; that

the latter fact was good circumstantial evidence that the claim that the knife had been stolen was a

vanity and a fraud; that these details taken in connection with the memorable and apparently

prophetic speech of the deceased concerning that knife, and the finally discovery of that very knife

in the fatal room where no living person was found present with the slaughtered man but the owner

of the knife and his brother, form an indestructible chain of evidence which fixed the crime upon

"But I shall presently ask to be sworn, and shall testify that there was a large reward offered for the

THIEF, also; and it was offered secretly and not advertised; that this fact was indiscreetly

mentionedor at least tacitly admittedin what was supposed to be safe circumstances, but may

NOT have been. The thief may have been present himself. [Tom Driscoll had been looking at the

speaker, but dropped his eyes at this point.] In that case he would retain the knife in his

possession, not daring to offer it for sale, or for pledge in a pawnshop. [There was a nodding of

heads among the audience by way of admission that this was not a bad stroke.] I shall prove to the

satisfaction of the jury that there WAS a person in Judge Driscoll's room several minutes before the

accused entered it. [This produced a strong sensation; the last drowsy head in the courtroom

roused up now, and made preparation to listen.] If it shall seem necessary, I will prove by the

Misses Clarkson that they met a veiled person ostensibly a womancoming out of the back

gate a few minutes after the cry for help was heard. This person was not a woman, but a man

dressed in woman's clothes." Another sensation. Wilson had his eye on Tom when he hazarded

this guess, to see what effect it would produce. He was satisfied with the result, and said to himself,

The object of that person in that house was robbery, not murder. It is true that the safe was not

open, but there was an ordinary cashbox on the table, with three thousand dollars in it. It is easily

supposable that the thief was concealed in the house; that he knew of this box, and of its owner's

habit of counting its contents and arranging his accounts at nightif he had that habit, which I do

not assert, of coursethat he tried to take the box while its owner slept, but made a noise and was

seized, and had to use the knife to save himself from capture; and that he fled without his booty

"I have now done with my theory, and will proceed to the evidences by which I propose to try to

prove its soundness." Wilson took up several of his strips of glass. When the audience recognized

these familiar mementos of Pudd'nhead's old time childish "puttering" and folly, the tense and

funereal interest vanished out of their faces, and the house burst into volleys of relieving and

refreshing laughter, and Tom chirked up and joined in the fun himself; but Wilson was apparently

"I beg the indulgence of the court while I make a few remarks in explanation of some evidence

which I am about to introduce, and which I shall presently ask to be allowed to verify under oath on

the witness stand. Every human being carries with him from his cradle to his grave certain physical

marks which do not change their character, and by which he can always be identifiedand that

without shade of doubt or question. These marks are his signature, his physiological autograph, so

to speak, and this autograph can not be counterfeited, nor can he disguise it or hide it away, nor

can it become illegible by the wear and mutations of time. This signature is not his faceage can

change that beyond recognition; it is not his hair, for that can fall out; it is not his height, for

duplicates of that exist; it is not his form, for duplicates of that exist also, whereas this signature is

each man's very ownthere is no duplicate of it among the swarming populations of the globe!

"This autograph consists of the delicate lines or corrugations with which Nature marks the insides

of the hands and the soles of the feet. If you will look at the balls of your fingers you that have

very sharp eyesightyou will observe that these dainty curving lines lie close together, like those

that indicate the borders of oceans in maps, and that they form various clearly defined patterns,

such as arches, circles, long curves, whorls, etc., and that these patters differ on the different

fingers. [Every man in the room had his hand up to the light now, and his head canted to one side,

and was minutely scrutinizing the balls of his fingers; there were whispered ejaculations of "Why,

it's soI never noticed that before!"] The patterns on the right hand are not the same as those on

the left. [Ejaculations of "Why, that's so, too!"] Taken finger for finger, your patterns differ from your

neighbor's. [Comparisons were made all over the houseeven the judge and jury were absorbed

in this curious work.] The patterns of a twin's right hand are not the same as those on his left. One

twin's patters are never the same as his fellow twin's pattersthe jury will find that the patterns

upon the finger balls of the twins' hands follow this rule. [An examination of the twins' hands was

begun at once.] You have often heard of twins who were so exactly alike that when dressed alike

their own parents could not tell them apart. Yet there was never a twin born in to this world that did

not carry from birth to death a sure identifier in this mysterious and marvelous natal autograph.

That once known to you, his fellow twin could never personate him and deceive you."

Wilson stopped and stood silent. Inattention dies a quick and sure death when a speaker does that.

The stillness gives warning that something is coming. All palms and finger balls went down now, all

slouching forms straightened, all heads came up, all eyes were fastened upon Wilson's face. He

waited yet one, two, three moments, to let his pause complete and perfect its spell upon the house;

then, when through the profound hush he could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall, he put out

his hand and took the Indian knife by the blade and held it aloft where all could see the sinister

"Upon this haft stands the assassin's natal autograph, written in the blood of that helpless and

unoffending old man who loved you and whom you all loved. There is but one man in the whole

earth whose hand can duplicate that crimson sign" he paused and raised his eyes to the

pendulum swinging back and forth "and please God we will produce that man in this room before

Stunned, distraught, unconscious of its own movement, the house half rose, as if expecting to see

the murderer appear at the door, and a breeze of muttered ejaculations swept the place. "Order in

the court!sit down!" This from the sheriff. He was obeyed, and quiet reigned again. Wilson stole a

glance at Tom, and said to himself, "He is flying signals of distress now; even people who despise

him are pitying him; they think this is a hard ordeal for a young fellow who has lost his benefactor

"For more than twenty years I have amused my compulsory leisure with collecting these curious

physical signatures in this town. At my house I have hundreds upon hundreds of them. Each and

every one is labeled with name and date; not labeled the next day or even the next hour, but in the

very minute that the impression was taken. When I go upon the witness stand I will repeat under

oath the things which I am now saying. I have the fingerprints of the court, the sheriff, and every

member of the jury. There is hardly a person in this room, white or black, whose natal signature I

cannot produce, and not one of them can so disguise himself that I cannot pick him out from a

multitude of his fellow creatures and unerringly identify him by his hands. And if he and I should live

to be a hundred I could still do it. [The interest of the audience was steadily deepening now.]

"I have studied some of these signatures so much that I know them as well as the bank cashier

knows the autograph of his oldest customer. While I turn my back now, I beg that several persons

will be so good as to pass their fingers through their hair, and then press them upon one of the

panes of the window near the jury, and that among them the accused may set THEIR finger marks.

Also, I beg that these experimenters, or others, will set their fingers upon another pane, and add

again the marks of the accused, but not placing them in the same order or relation to the other

signatures as beforefor, by one chance in a million, a person might happen upon the right marks

He turned his back, and the two panes were quickly covered with delicately lined oval spots, but

visible only to such persons as could get a dark background for themthe foliage of a tree,

outside, for instance. Then upon call, Wilson went to the window, made his examination, and said:

"This is Count Luigi's right hand; this one, three signatures below, is his left. Here is Count Angelo's

right; down here is his left. How for the other pane: here and here are Count Luigi's, here and here

"This is the signature of Mr. Justice Robinson. [Applause.] This, of Constable Blake. [Applause.]

This of John Mason, juryman. [Applause.] This, of the sheriff. [Applause.] I cannot name the others,

but I have them all at home, named and dated, and could identify them all by my fingerprint

He moved to his place through a storm of applausewhich the sheriff stopped, and also made the

people sit down, for they were all standing and struggling to see, of course. Court, jury, sheriff, and

everybody had been too absorbed in observing Wilson's performance to attend to the audience

"Now then," said Wilson, "I have here the natal autographs of the two childrenthrown up to ten

times the natural size by the pantograph, so that anyone who can see at all can tell the markings

apart at a glance. We will call the children A and B. Here are A's finger marks, taken at the age of

five months. Here they are again taken at seven months. [Tom started.] They are alike, you see.

Here are B's at five months, and also at seven months. They, too, exactly copy each other, but the

patterns are quite different from A's, you observe. I shall refer to these again presently, but we will

"Here, thrown up ten sizes, are the natal autographs of the two persons who are here before you

accused of murdering Judge Driscoll. I made these pantograph copies last night, and will so swear

when I go upon the witness stand. I ask the jury to compare them with the finger marks of the

One juryman after another took the cardboard and the glass and made the comparison. Then the

"Please turn that cardboard face down, and take this one, and compare it searchingly, by the

magnifier, with the fatal signature upon the knife handle, and report your finding to the court."

Wilson turned toward the counsel for the prosecution, and there was a clearly recognizable note of

"May it please the court, the state has claimed, strenuously and persistently, that the bloodstained

fingerprints upon that knife handle were left there by the assassin of Judge Driscoll. You have

heard us grant that claim, and welcome it." He turned to the jury: "Compare the fingerprints of the

The comparison began. As it proceeded, all movement and all sound ceased, and the deep silence

of an absorbed and waiting suspense settled upon the house; and when at last the words came,

"THEY DO NOT EVEN RESEMBLE," a thundercrash of applause followed and the house sprang to

its feet, but was quickly repressed by official force and brought to order again. Tom was altering his

position every few minutes now, but none of his changes brought repose nor any small trifle of

comfort. When the house's attention was become fixed once more, Wilson said gravely, indicating

"These men are innocentI have no further concern with them. [Another outbreak of applause

began, but was promptly checked.] We will now proceed to find the guilty. [Tom's eyes were

starting from their socketsyes, it was a cruel day for the bereaved youth, everybody thought.] We

will return to the infant autographs of A and B. I will ask the jury to take these large pantograph

"Now examine this pantograph, taken at eight months, and also marked A. Does it tally with the

"You are quite right. Now take these two pantographs of B's autograph, marked five months and

"Take this third pantograph marked B, eight months. Does it tally with B's other two?"

"Do you know how to account for those strange discrepancies? I will tell you. For a purpose

unknown to us, but probably a selfish one, somebody changed those children in the cradle."

This produced a vast sensation, naturally; Roxana was astonished at this admirable guess, but not

disturbed by it. To guess the exchange was one thing, to guess who did it quite another.

Pudd'nhead Wilson could do wonderful things, no doubt, but he couldn't do impossible ones. Safe?

"Between the ages of seven months and eight months those children were changed in the

cradle"he made one of this effectcollecting pauses, and added"and the person who did it is in

Roxy's pulses stood still! The house was thrilled as with an electric shock, and the people half rose

as if to seek a glimpse of the person who had made that exchange. Tom was growing limp; the life

"A was put into B's cradle in the nursery; B was transferred to the kitchen and became a Negro and

a slave [Sensation confusion of angry ejaculations]but within a quarter of an hour he will stand

before you white and free! [Burst of applause, checked by the officers.] From seven months onward

until now, A has still been a usurper, and in my finger record he bears B's name. Here is his

pantograph at the age of twelve. Compare it with the assassin's signature upon the knife handle.

"The murderer of your friend and mineYork Driscoll of the generous hand and the kindly

spiritsits in among you. Valet de Chambre, Negro and slavefalsely called Thomas a Becket

Tom turned his ashen face imploring toward the speaker, made some impotent movements with his

Roxy flung herself upon her knees, covered her face with her hands, and out through her sobs the

It is often the case that the man who can't tell a lie thinks he is the best judge of one.

OCTOBER 12, THE DISCOVERY. It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more

The town sat up all night to discuss the amazing events of the day and swap guesses as to when

Tom's trial would begin. Troop after troop of citizens came to serenade Wilson, and require a

speech, and shout themselves hoarse over every sentence that fell from his lipsfor all his

sentences were golden, now, all were marvelous. His long fight against hard luck and prejudice

was ended; he was a made man for good. And as each of these roaring gangs of enthusiasts

marched away, some remorseful member of it was quite sure to raise his voice and say:

"And this is the man the likes of us have called a pudd'nhead for more than twenty years. He has

The twins were heroes of romance, now, and with rehabilitated reputations. But they were weary of

Roxy's heart was broken. The young fellow upon whom she had inflicted twentythree years of

slavery continued the false heir's pension of thirtyfive dollars a month to her, but her hurts were

too deep for money to heal; the spirit in her eye was quenched, her martial bearing departed with it,

and the voice of her laughter ceased in the land. In her church and its affairs she found her only

The real heir suddenly found himself rich and free, but in a most embarrassing situation. He could

neither read nor write, and his speech was the basest dialect of the Negro quarter. His gait, his

attitudes, his gestures, his bearing, his laugh all were vulgar and uncouth; his manners were the

manners of a slave. Money and fine clothes could not mend these defects or cover them up; they

only made them more glaring and the more pathetic. The poor fellow could not endure the terrors of

the white man's parlor, and felt at home and at peace nowhere but in the kitchen. The family pew

was a misery to him, yet he could nevermore enter into the solacing refuge of the "nigger

gallery"that was closed to him for good and all. But we cannot follow his curious fate further

The false heir made a full confession and was sentenced to imprisonment for life. But now a

complication came up. The Percy Driscoll estate was in such a crippled shape when its owner died

that it could pay only sixty percent of its great indebtedness, and was settled at that rate. But the

creditors came forward now, and complained that inasmuch as through an error for which THEY

were in no way to blame the false heir was not inventoried at the time with the rest of the property,

great wrong and loss had thereby been inflicted upon them. They rightly claimed that "Tom" was

lawfully their property and had been so for eight years; that they had already lost sufficiently in

being deprived of his services during that long period, and ought not to be required to add anything

to that loss; that if he had been delivered up to them in the first place, they would have sold him

and he could not have murdered Judge Driscoll; therefore it was not that he had really committed

the murder, the guilt lay with the erroneous inventory. Everybody saw that there was reason in this.

Everybody granted that if "Tom" were white and free it would be unquestionably right to punish

himit would be no loss to anybody; but to shut up a valuable slave for life that was quite

As soon as the Governor understood the case, he pardoned Tom at once, and the creditors sold

A man who is not born with the novelwriting gift has a troublesome time of it when he tries to build

a novel. I know this from experience. He has no clear idea of his story; in fact he has no story. He

merely has some people in his mind, and an incident or two, also a locality, and he trusts he can

plunge those people into those incidents with interesting results. So he goes to work. To write a

novel? Nothat is a thought which comes later; in the beginning he is only proposing to tell a little

tale, a very little tale, a sixpage tale. But as it is a tale which he is not acquainted with, and can

only find out what it is by listening as it goes along telling itself, it is more than apt to go on and on

and on till it spreads itself into a book. I know about this, because it has happened to me so many

And I have noticed another thing: that as the short tale grows into the long tale, the original

intention (or motif) is apt to get abolished and find itself superseded by a quite different one. It was

so in the case of a magazine sketch which I once started to writea funny and fantastic sketch

about a prince an a pauper; it presently assumed a grave cast of its own accord, and in that new

shape spread itself out into a book. Much the same thing happened with PUDD'NHEAD WILSON. I

had a sufficiently hard time with that tale, because it changed itself from a farce to a tragedy while I

was going along with ita most embarrassing circumstance. But what was a great deal worse

was, that it was not one story, but two stories tangled together; and they obstructed and interrupted

each other at every turn and created no end of confusion and annoyance. I could not offer the book

for publication, for I was afraid it would unseat the reader's reason, I did not know what was the

matter with it, for I had not noticed, as yet, that it was two stories in one. It took me months to make

that discovery. I carried the manuscript back and forth across the Atlantic two or three times, and

read it and studied over it on shipboard; and at last I saw where the difficulty lay. I had no further

trouble. I pulled one of the stories out by the roots, and left the othera kind of literary Caesarean

Would the reader care to know something about the story which I pulled out? He has been told

many a time how the bornand trained novelist works; won't he let me round and complete his

Originally the story was called THOSE EXTRAORDINARY TWINS. I meant to make it very short. I

had seen a picture of a youthful Italian "freak"or "freaks"which wasor which were on

exhibition in our citiesa combination consisting of two heads and four arms joined to a single

body and a single pair of legs and I thought I would write an extravagantly fantastic little story

with this freak of nature for heroor heroes a silly young miss for heroine, and two old ladies

and two boys for the minor parts. I lavishly elaborated these people and their doings, of course. But

the take kept spreading along and spreading along, and other people got to intruding themselves

and taking up more and more room with their talk and their affairs. Among them came a stranger

named Pudd'nhead Wilson, and woman named Roxana; and presently the doings of these two

pushed up into prominence a young fellow named Tom Driscoll, whose proper place was away in

the obscure background. Before the book was half finished those three were taking things almost

entirely into their own hands and working the whole tale as a private venture of their owna tale

When the book was finished and I came to look around to see what had become of the team I had

originally started out with Aunt Patsy Cooper, Aunt Betsy Hale, and two boys, and Rowena the

lightweight heroinethey were nowhere to be seen; they had disappeared from the story some

time or other. I hunted about and found themfound them stranded, idle, forgotten, and

permanently useless. It was very awkward. It was awkward all around, but more particularly in the

case of Rowena, because there was a love match on, between her and one of the twins that

constituted the freak, and I had worked it up to a blistering heat and thrown in a quite dramatic love

quarrel, wherein Rowena scathingly denounced her betrothed for getting drunk, and scoffed at his

explanation of how it had happened, and wouldn't listen to it, and had driven him from her in the

usual "forever" way; and now here she sat crying and brokenhearted; for she had found that he had

spoken only the truth; that is was not he, but the other of the freak that had drunk the liquor that

made him drunk; that her half was a prohibitionist and had never drunk a drop in his life, and

altogether tight as a brick three days in the week, was wholly innocent of blame; and indeed, when

sober, was constantly doing all he could to reform his brother, the other half, who never got any

satisfaction out of drinking, anyway, because liquor never affected him. Yes, here she was,

I didn't know what to do with her. I was as sorry for her as anybody could be, but the campaign was

over, the book was finished, she was sidetracked, and there was no possible way of crowding her

in, anywhere. I could not leave her there, of course; it would not do. After spreading her out so, and

making such a todo over her affairs, it would be absolutely necessary to account to the reader for

her. I thought and thought and studied and studied; but I arrived at nothing. I finally saw plainly that

there was really no way but oneI must simply give her the grand bounce. It grieved me to do it,

for after associating with her so much I had come to kind of like her after a fashion, notwithstanding

things and was so nauseatingly sentimental. Still it had to be done. So at the top of Chapter XVII I

put a "Calendar" remark concerning July the Fourth, and began the chapter with this statistic:

"Rowena went out in the backyard after supper to see the fireworks and fell down the well and got

It seemed abrupt, but I thought maybe the reader wouldn't notice it, because I changed the subject

right away to something else. Anyway it loosened up Rowena from where she was stuck and got

her out of the way, and that was the main thing. It seemed a prompt good way of weeding out

people that had got stalled, and a plenty good enough way for those others; so I hunted up the two

boys and said, "They went out back one night to stone the cat and fell down the well and got

drowned." Next I searched around and found old Aunt Patsy and Aunt Betsy Hale where they were

around, and said, "They went out back one night to visit the sick and fell down the well and got

drowned." I was going to drown some others, but I gave up the idea, partly because I believed that

if I kept that up it would arose attention, and perhaps sympathy with those people, and partly

Still the story was unsatisfactory. Here was a set of new characters who were become inordinately

prominent and who persisted in remaining so to the end; and back yonder was an older set who

made a large noise and a great todo for a little while and then suddenly played out utterly and fell

down the well. There was a radical defect somewhere, and I must search it out and cure it.

The defect turned out to be the one already spoken of two stories in one, a farce and a tragedy.

So I pulled out the farce and left the tragedy. This left the original team in, but only as mere names,

not as characters. Their prominence was wholly gone; they were not even worth drowning; so I

removed that detail. Also I took the twins apart and made two separate men of them. They had no

occasion to have foreign names now, but it was too much trouble to remove them all through, so I