Mark Twain

“ 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. ”

“ It was the twins knocking out a classic four-handed piece on the piano, in great style. Rowena was satisfied—satisfied down to the bottom of her heart.
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 prentice-work and barren of grace or charm when compared with these intoxicating floods of melodious sound. They realized that for once in their lives they were hearing masters. ”

“ No more than a bird leaves when it flies through the air—yes, 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 assassin—no other need apply. And that is the job that has been laid out for poor Pudd’nhead Wilson, of all people in the world! ”

“ When we escaped from that 80 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 everywhere—years 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. ”

“ Wilson wrote something on a slip of paper and handed it to Luigi, who read it to himself and said to Tom—
“Unfold your slip and read it, Mr. Driscoll.”
Tom read:
“It was prophesied that I would kill a man. It came true before the year was out.”
Tom added, “Great Scott!”
Luigi handed Wilson’s paper to Tom, and said—
“Now read this one.”
Tom read:
“You have killed some one, but whether man, woman or child, I do not make out.”
“Cæsar’s ghost!” commented Tom, with astonishment. “It beats anything that was ever heard of! Why, a man’s own hand is his deadliest enemy! ”

“ 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 ”

“ There are three infallible ways of pleasing an author, and the three form a rising scale of compliment: 1, to tell him you have read one of his books; 2, to tell him you have read all of his books; 3, to 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.—Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar. ”

“ Judge Driscoll had generously left the law feature out of the Wilson biography which he had furnished to the twins. Young Tom laughed pleasantly, and said:
“Wilson’s a lawyer, gentlemen, but he doesn’t practise now.”
The sarcasm bit, but Wilson kept himself under control, and said without passion:
“I don’t practise, 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 hold of a set of books to untangle as often as I should like. ”

“ A farm smoke-house had to be kept heavily padlocked, for 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 some one to love. ”

“ Wilson regarded the case of the twins as desperate—in 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 account—an undertaking which had all the aspect of the impossible. Still, the person who made the finger-prints must be sought. ”

“ Another point scored against the detested twins! Really it was a great day for Tom. He was encouraged to chance a parting shot, now, at the same target, and did it.
“You know that wonderful Indian knife that the twins have been making such a to-do 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. I’ve heard twenty people talking like that to-day.” ”

“ The patterns of a twin’s right hand are not the same as those on his left. One twin’s patterns are never the same as his fellow-twin’s patterns—the jury will find that the patterns upon the finger-balls of the accused 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 into this world that did not carry from birth to death a sure identifier in this mysterious and marvelous natal autograph. ”

“ 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.—Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar. ”

“ I’ll square up with the proceeds of my raid, and then gambling has got to be stopped—and stopped short off. It’s the worst vice I’ve got—from 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 fortune—but 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. ”

“ 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 Liberty.
Even a sober person does not like to have a human being emptied on him when he is not doing 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 ”

“ What are you driving at?” asked Wilson, with a dawning sense of discomfort.
“Why, that there isn’t any such knife.”
“Look here, Wilson,” said Blake, “Tom Driscoll’s right, for a thousand dollars—if 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. Tom replied:
“Gain? Oh, nothing that you would value, maybe. But they are strangers making their way in a new community. ”

“ 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 it because she repented.—Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar. ”