Mark Twain

“ At times, in his seasons of deepest depressions, Angelo almost wished that he and his brother might become segregated from each other and be separate individuals, like other men. But of course as soon as his mind cleared and these diseased imaginings passed away, he shuddered at the repulsive thought, and earnestly prayed that it might visit him no more. To be separate, and as other men are! How awkward it would seem; how unendurable. What would he do with his hands, his arms? How would his legs feel? How odd, and strange, and grotesque every action, attitude, movement, gesture would be. ”

“ Did you ever hear anything like it, Patsy Cooper?”
“Oh, you'll find there's more than one thing about them that ain't commonplace,” said the widow, with the complacent air of a person with a property right in a novelty that is under admiring scrutiny.
“Well, now, how ever do you manage it? I don't mind saying I'm suffering to know.”
“He who made us,” said Angelo reverently, “and with us this difficulty, also provided a way out of it. By a mysterious law of our being, each of us has utter and indisputable command of our body a week at a time, turn and turn about.” ”

“ Luigi interrupted, with temper; and added, to himself, “Damnation, I'm going to be roasted alive, I just know it!”
“Why, Looy! Do be quiet; I never saw such a fractious thing. A body would think you didn't care for your brother.”
“I don't—to that extent, Aunt Patsy. I was glad the drowning was postponed a minute ago, but I'm not now. No, that is all gone by; I want to be drowned.”
“You'll bring a judgment on yourself just as sure as you live, if you go on like that. Why, I never heard the beat of it. Now, there—there! you've said enough. ”

“ Luigi went on, with animation:
“Both of us get a bath for one ticket, theater seat for one ticket, pew-rent is on the same basis, but at peep-shows we pay double.”
“We have much to be thankful for,” said Angelo, impressively, with a reverent light in his eye and a reminiscent tone in his voice, “we have been greatly blessed. As a rule, what one of us has lacked, the other, by the bounty of Providence, has been able to supply. My brother is hardy, I am not; he is very masculine, assertive, aggressive; I am much less so. I am subject to illness, he is never ill. ”

“ At midnight Angelo was sleeping peacefully. His immersion had not harmed him, it had merely made him wholesomely drowsy, and he had been dead asleep many hours now. It had made Luigi drowsy, too, but he had got only brief naps, on account of his having to take the medicine every three-quarters of an hour-and Aunt Betsy Hale was there to see that he did it. When he complained and resisted, she was quietly firm with him, and said in a low voice:
“No-no, that won't do; you mustn't talk, and you mustn't retch and gag that way, either—you'll wake up your poor brother.” ”

“ Yet I had precedents of my own whereby I had set aside that law on two different occasions and thus succeeded in convicting criminals to whose crimes there were no witnesses but themselves. What have you accomplished this day? Do you realize it? You have set adrift, unadmonished, in this community, two men endowed with an awful and mysterious gift, a hidden and grisly power for evil—a power by which each in his turn may commit crime after crime of the most heinous character, and no man be able to tell which is the guilty or which the innocent party in any case of them all. ”

“ I know, without that, that at dinner yesterday, Angelo was as tired as a dog, and yet Luigi wouldn't lend him the legs to go up-stairs and take a nap with.”
“Did he ask for them?”
“Let me see—it seems to me, somehow, that—that—Aunt Betsy, do you remember whether he—”
“Never mind about what Aunt Betsy remembers—she is not a witness; we only want to know what YOU remember yourself,” said the judge.
“Well, it does seem to me that you are most cantankerously particular about a little thing, Sim Robinson. Why, when I can't remember a thing myself, I always—”
“Ah, please go on!” ”

“ Pudd'nhead Wilson advanced to meet them, and said anxiously:
“I must say a word in behalf of my principal's proxy, Count Luigi, to whom you have kindly granted the privilege of fighting my principal's battle for him. It is growing late, and Count Luigi is in great trouble lest midnight shall strike before the finish.”
“It is another testimony,” said Howard, approvingly. “That young man is fine all through. He wishes to save his brother the sorrow of fighting on the Sabbath, and he is right; it is the right and manly feeling and does him credit. We will make all possible haste.” ”

“ But as the canvass went on, troubles began to spring up all around—troubles for the twins, and through them for all the parties and segments and fractions of parties. Whenever Luigi had possession of the legs, he carried Angelo to balls, rum shops, Sons of Liberty parades, horse-races, campaign riots, and everywhere else that could damage him with his party and the church; and when it was Angelo's week he carried Luigi diligently to all manner of moral and religious gatherings, doing his best to regain the ground he had lost before. ”

“ Keep Count Angelo nicely covered up with six or seven blankets, and when he is thirsty—which will be frequently—moisten a rag in the vapor of the tea kettle and let his brother suck it. When he is hungry—which will also be frequently—he must not be humored oftener than every seven or eight hours; then toast part of a cracker until it begins to brown, and give it to his brother.”
“That is all very well, as far as Angelo is concerned,” said Luigi, “but what am I to eat?”
“I do not see that there is anything the matter with you,” the doctor answered, “you may, of course, eat what you please.” ”

“ If anything, it made the matter worse, as a rule, because it irritated Angelo. This made it a favorite with Luigi. By and by the widow said:
“Angelo, you are tired, you've overdone yourself; you go right to bed after dinner, and get a good nap and a rest, then you'll be all right.”
“Indeed, I would give anything if I could do that, madam.”
“And what's to hender, I'd like to know? Land, the room's yours to do what you please with! The idea that you can't do what you like with your own!” ”

“ I would start one way, Luigi would start another, at the same moment—the result would be a standstill, wouldn't it?”
“As sure as you are born! Now ain't that wonderful! A body would never have thought of it.”
“We should always be arguing and fussing and disputing over the merest trifles. We should lose worlds of time, for we couldn't go down-stairs or up, couldn't go to bed, couldn't rise, couldn't wash, couldn't dress, couldn't stand up, couldn't sit down, couldn't even cross our legs, without calling a meeting first and explaining the case and passing resolutions, and getting consent. ”

“ These twins have command of their mutual legs turn about. Count Luigi is in command now; but at midnight, possession will pass to my principal, Count Angelo, and—well, you can foresee what will happen. He will march straight off the field, and carry Luigi with him.”
“Why! sure enough!” cried the judge, “we have heard something about that extraordinary law of their being, already—nothing very definite, it is true, as regards dates and durations of power, but I see it is definite enough as regards to-night. Of course we must give Luigi every chance. ”

“ Never let on; treat us always as if we were twins.”
“You can depend on us,” said Aunt Betsy, “but it won't be easy, because now that I know you ain't you don't seem so.”
Luigi muttered to himself with satisfaction: “That swindle has gone through without change of cars.” ”

“ A man who is not born with the novel-writing 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. He knows these people, he knows the selected locality, and he trusts that he can plunge those people into those incidents with interesting results. So he goes to work. To write a novel? No—that is a thought which comes later; in the beginning he is only proposing to tell a little tale; a very little tale ”

“ A jury was sworn in; then Mr. Allen said:
“We will detain your honor but a moment with this case. It is not one where any doubt of the fact of the assault can enter in. These gentlemen—the accused—kicked my client at the Market Hall last night; they kicked him with violence; with extraordinary violence; with even unprecedented violence, I may say; insomuch that he was lifted entirely off his feet and discharged into the midst of the audience. We can prove this by four hundred witnesses—we shall call but three. Mr. Harkness will take the stand.” ”

“ A young man ought to be earning his living by that time. If Tom were doing that, or was even trying to do it, the judge would be a heap better satisfied with him. Tom's always going to begin, but somehow he can't seem to find just the opening he likes.”
“Well, now, it's partly the judge's own fault. Promising the boy his property wasn't the way to set him to earning a fortune of his own. But what do you think—is Roweny beginning to lean any toward him, or ain't she?”
Aunt Patsy had a secret in her bosom; she wanted to keep it there, but nature was too strong for her. ”

“ Rowena thought Luigi's retort was wonderfully quick and bright, and she remarked to herself with satisfaction that there wasn't any young native of Dawson's Landing that could have risen to the occasion like that. Luigi detected the applause in her face, and expressed his pleasure and his thanks with his eyes ”

“ Now what does this overwhelming body of evidence establish? It establishes just one thing, and that thing it establishes beyond any peradventure whatever. Friends, we would not have it known for the world, and I must beg you to keep it strictly to yourselves, but the truth is, we are no more twins than you are. ”

“ Imitation is the bane of courts—I thank God that this one is free from the contamination of that vice—and in no long time you will see the fatal work of this hour seized upon by profligate so-called guardians of justice in all the wide circumstance of this planet and perpetuated in their pernicious decisions. ”

“ But at last the people came to their senses, and said:
“Pudd'nhead was right at the start—we ought to have hired the official half of that human phillipene to resign; but it's too late now; some of us haven't got anything left to hire him with.”
“Yes, we have,” said another citizen, “we've got this”—and he produced a halter.
Many shouted: “That's the ticket.” But others said: “No—Count Angelo is innocent; we mustn't hang him.”
“Who said anything about hanging him? We are only going to hang the other one.”
“Then that is all right—there is no objection to that.”
So they hanged Luigi. ”

“ Well, we always travel as one person, since we occupy but one seat; so we save half the fare.”
“How romantic!” interjected Rowena, with effusion.
“Yes, my dear young lady, and how practical too, and economical. In Europe, beds in the hotels are not charged with the board, but separately—another saving, for we stood to our rights and paid for the one bed only. The landlords often insisted that as both of us occupied the bed we ought—”
“No, they didn't,” said Angelo. ”

“ Blowing down the walls of Jericho with rams' horns wa'n't as difficult, in my opinion.”
“And that is not all,” said Angelo. “A thing that is even more marvelous, perhaps, is the fact that the change takes note of longitude and fits itself to the meridian we are on. Luigi is in command this week. Now, if on Saturday night at a moment before midnight we could fly in an instant to a point fifteen degrees west of here, he would hold possession of the power another hour, for the change observes local time and no other.” ”

“ By its terms you, the guilty one, go free with the innocent. Depart in peace, and come no more! The costs devolve upon the outraged plaintiff—another iniquity. The court stands dissolved.”
Almost everybody crowded forward to overwhelm the twins and their counsel with congratulations; but presently the two old aunties dug the duplicates out and bore them away in triumph through the hurrahing crowd, while lots of new friends carried Pudd'nhead Wilson off tavern-ward to feast him and “wet down” his great and victorious entry into the legal arena. ”

“ Prisoners at the bar, stand up. Through suppression of evidence, a jury of your—our—countrymen have been obliged to deliver a verdict concerning your case which stinks to heaven with the rankness of its injustice. ”

“ Neither of us eats anything at the other's table, but just simply works—works. Thus, you see there are four hands to feed Angelo, and the same four to feed me. Each of us eats two meals.”
The old lady was dazed with admiration, and kept saying, “It is perfectly wonderful, perfectly wonderful” and the boy Joe licked his chops enviously, but said nothing—at least aloud.
“Yes,” continued Luigi, “our construction may have its disadvantages—in fact, HAS—but it also has its compensations of one sort and another. Take travel, for instance. Travel is enormously expensive, in all countries ”

“ In the mean time the city government had been at a standstill, because without Luigi there was a tie in the board of aldermen, whereas with him the liquor interest—the richest in the political field—would have one majority. But the court decided that Angelo could not sit in the board with him, either in public or executive sessions, and at the same time forbade the board to deny admission to Luigi, a fairly and legally chosen alderman. The case was carried up and up from court to court, yet still the same old original decision was confirmed every time. ”

“ Please answer it plainly and squarely.”
“Don't you talk to me like that, Sim Robinson—I won't have it. How do I know, indeed! How do YOU know what you know? Because somebody told you. You didn't invent it out of your own head, did you? ”