Mark Twain

“ 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 up-stairs, and brooded in his room a long time disconsolate and forlorn, with Luigi’s Indian knife for a text. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.—Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar.
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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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 name ought to be. ”

“ When Wilson tried to connect her with the stealing-raid, and thought she might have been the old woman’s confederate, if not the very thief herself 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 good while to come. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But Wilson laughed, and said—
“That is quite simple; that is easily explicable. I am not his doll—his baby—his infatuation: his nephew 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 twenty-five or thirty years. It is famished, it is crazed with 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. ”

“ Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stairs a step at a time.—Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar.
At breakfast in the morning the twins’ charm of manner and easy and polished bearing made speedy conquest of the family’s good graces. ”

“ 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 practising lawyer of the long-submerged Pudd’nhead Wilson; Saturday 198 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. ”

“ 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 identified—and that without shade of doubt or question. These marks are his signature, his physiological autograph, so to speak, and this autograph 287 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. ”

“ CHAPTER IX. Tom Practises Sycophancy.
Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.—Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar.
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.—Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar.
Tom flung himself on the sofa, and put his throbbing head in his hands, and rested his elbows on his knees. He rocked himself back and forth and moaned.
“I’ve knelt to a nigger wench!” ”

“ To-night! An admirable fellow—admirable!”
180 “Admirable? He’s a darling! Why, it’s an honor as well as a pleasure to stand up before such a man. Come—off with you! Go and arrange everything—and give him my heartiest compliments. A rare fellow, indeed; an admirable fellow, as you have said!”
Howard hurried away, saying—
“I’ll have him in the vacant stretch between Wilson’s and the haunted house within the hour, and I’ll bring my own pistols.”
Judge Driscoll began to walk the floor in a state of pleased excitement; but presently he stopped, and began to think—began to think of Tom. ”

“ 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 of these late-adopted darlings throws a brick at it.”
“It’s a curious philosophy,” said Luigi.
“It ain’t a philosophy at all—it’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 jackass-voiced macaw ”