Pudd'nhead's Startling Discovery.
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.
As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's
Calendar.
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 they 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
pleasing an author; they were now working the best of the three.
There was an interruption, now. Young Tom 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 smooth-faced and
rather handsome, and smooth and undulatory in his movements--graceful,
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
free-and-easy 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 good-naturedly put, and always inflicted a little
pang, for it touched a secret sore; but this time the pang was sharp,
since strangers were present.
"Well, how does the law come on? Had a case yet?"
Wilson bit his lip, but answered, "No--not yet," with as much
indifference as he could assume. 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. But it is also true that I did fit
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 laughed again.
"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 something;"
but thought better of it and said, "However, this matter doesn't fit
well in a general conversation."
"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 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 with. Fetch it out,
Dave."
Wilson brought three of his glass strips, and said--
"I get the subject to pass the fingers of his right hand 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 and 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 off. You begin, Tom."
"Why, I think you took my finger-marks once or twice before."
"Yes; but you were a little boy the last time, only about twelve years
old."
"That's so. Of course I've changed entirely since then, and variety is
what the crowned heads want, I guess."
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 the third. Wilson marked the
glasses with names and date, 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, returning 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 all-round
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 home--for here they don't give shucks for
his scientifics, and they call his skull a notion-factory--hey, Dave,
ain't it so? But never mind; he'll make his mark some day--finger-mark,
you know, he-he! 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 Jack-at-all-science we've got in this town,
and don't know it."
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. In the Orient--"
Tom looked surprised and incredulous. He said--
"That juggling a science? But really, you ain't serious, are you?"
"Yes, entirely so. Four years ago we had our hands read out to us as if
our palms had been covered with print."
"Well, do you mean to say there was actually anything in it?" asked Tom,
his incredulity beginning to weaken a little.
"There was this much in it," said Angelo: "what was told us of our
characters was minutely exact--we could not have bettered it ourselves.
Next, two or three memorable things that had happened to us were laid
bare--things which no one present but ourselves could have known about."
"Why, it's rank sorcery!" exclaimed Tom, who was now becoming very much
interested. "And how did they make out with what was going to happen to
you in the future?"
"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 prophecies 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 if they didn't."
Tom was entirely sobered, and profoundly impressed. He said,
apologetically--
"Dave, I wasn't meaning to belittle that science; I was only
chaffing--chattering, I reckon I'd better say. I wish you would look at
their palms. Come, won't you?"
"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 me,--not 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 there--no, on the whole, I'll
let the future alone; that's really the affair of an expert."
He took Luigi's hand. Tom said--
"Wait--don'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 give it to
me so I can see if Dave finds it in your hand."
Luigi wrote a line privately, and folded up the piece of paper, and
handed it to Tom, saying--
"I'll tell you when to look at it, if he finds it."
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 declared that the
chart was artistically drawn and was correct.
Next, Wilson took up Luigi's 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 surprised expression--
"Here is a record of an incident which you would perhaps not wish me
to--"
"Bring it out," said Luigi, good-naturedly; "I promise you it 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 to--to--I believe I would rather
write it or whisper it to you, and let you decide for yourself whether
you want it talked out or not."
"That will answer," said Luigi; "write it."
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!
Just think of that--a man's own hand keeps a record of the deepest and
fatalest secrets of his life, and is treacherously ready to expose him
to any black-magic stranger that comes along. But what do you let a
person look at your hand for, with that awful thing printed on it?"
"Oh," said Luigi, reposefully, "I don't mind it. I killed the man for
good reasons, and I don't regret it."
"What were the reasons?"
"Well, he needed killing."
"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 action."
"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 he have killed me, too? I saved my own life,
you see."
"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 that hearthstone at one time and another. It isn't much too
look at, except that it isn't shaped like other knives, or dirks, or
whatever it may be called--here, I'll draw it for you." He took a sheet
of paper and made a rapid sketch. "There it is--a 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 possessors--I 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 long--round, 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--so--and lift it aloft 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 the sheath more worth looking at than the knife
itself, of course."
Tom said to himself--
"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 about that."
"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 incrusted on its sheath,
without a doubt. Luigi had it under his pillow; we were in bed together.
There was a dim night-light 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
bed-clothes, 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
whole story."
Wilson and Tom drew deep breaths, and after some general chat about the
tragedy, Pudd'nhead said, taking Tom's hand--
"Now, Tom, I've never had a look at your palms, as it happens; perhaps
you've got some little questionable privacies that need--hel-lo!"
Tom had snatched away his hand, and was looking a good deal confused.
"Why, he's blushing!" said Luigi.
Tom darted an ugly look at him, and said sharply--
"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 out
before I thought, and I'm very, very sorry--you must forgive me!"
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 with each other. Tom was charmed; so
pleased, indeed, that he cautiously did what he could to increase the
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 door--an interruption which
fretted him as much as it gratified Wilson. Wilson opened the door.
The visitor was a good-natured, ignorant, energetic, middle-aged
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 anti-rum 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 judicious to be one.
The twins left with Buckstone, and Tom Driscoll joined 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 Buckstone--Tom
Driscoll still following--and 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
ever-glorious organization, the paradise of the free and the perdition
of the slave."
This eloquent discharge opened the flood-gates of enthusiasm again, and
the election was carried with thundering unanimity. Then arose a storm
of cries:
"Wet them down! Wet them down! Give them a drink!"
Glasses of whisky were handed to the twins. Luigi waved his aloft, then
brought it to his lips; but Angelo set his down. There was another storm
of cries:
"What's the matter with the other one?" "What is the blond one going
back on us for?" "Explain! Explain!"
The chairman inquired, and then reported--
"We have made an unfortunate mistake, gentlemen. I find that the Count
Angelo Capello is opposed to our creed--is 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
house?"
There was a general burst of laughter, plentifully accented with
whistlings and cat-calls, 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
by-laws 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
gentleman 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 pleasant to him.
This speech was received with great applause, mixed with cries of--
"That's the talk!" "He's a good fellow, anyway, if he is a teetotaler!"
"Drink his health!" "Give him a rouser, and no heeltaps!"
Glasses were handed around, and everybody on the platform drank Angelo's
health, while the house bellowed forth in song:
For he's a jolly good fel-low,
For he's a jolly good fel-low,
For he's a jolly good fe-el-low,--
Which nobody can deny.
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
merry--almost idiotically so--and he began to take a most lively and
prominent part in the proceedings, particularly in the music and
cat-calls and side-remarks.
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 audience--
"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 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; in fact there was probably not an
entirely sober one in the auditorium. Driscoll was promptly and
indignantly flung on to 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 ever lengthening
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 relieving the mass.
The fire-boys 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 hook-and-ladder company.
Half of each was composed of rummies and the other half of anti-rummies,
after the moral and political share-and-share-alike fashion of the
frontier town of the period. Enough anti-rummies 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 costume--and 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 fire-boys 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 against fire; they insured against the
fire-company.