Tom Stares at Ruin.
When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know have
gone to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.--Pudd'nhead
Wilson's Calendar.
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.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's
Calendar.
Thus mournfully communing with himself Tom moped along the lane past
Pudd'nhead Wilson's house, and still on and on between fences inclosing
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 thought quieted it--the detested twins would be
there.
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 clearing of a throat.
"It's that fickle-tempered, dissipated young goose--poor devil, he find
friends pretty scarce to-day, likely, after the disgrace of carrying a
personal-assault case into a law-court."
A dejected knock. "Come in!"
Tom entered, and drooped 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 worse than that--oh, yes, a million times
worse."
"Why, Tom, what do you mean? Has Rowena--"
"Flung me? No, but the old man has."
Wilson said to himself, "Aha!" and thought of the mysterious girl in the
bedroom. "The Driscolls have been making discoveries!" Then he said
aloud, gravely:
"Tom, there are some kinds of dissipation which--"
"Oh, shucks, this hasn't got anything to do with dissipation. He wanted
me to challenge that derned Italian savage, and I wouldn't do it."
"Yes, of course he would do that," said Wilson in a meditative
matter-of-course 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 like him. I couldn't understand it. How
did it happen?"
"It happened because he didn't know anything about it. He was asleep
when I got home last night."
"And you didn't wake him? Tom, is that possible?"
Tom was not getting much comfort here. He fidgeted a moment, then said:
"I didn't choose to tell him--that's all. He was going a-fishing before
dawn, with Pembroke Howard, and if I got the twins into the common
calaboose--and I thought sure I could--I 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, and wouldn't allow any."
"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 court until I got
word to him and let him have a gentleman's chance."
"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 to-day. And you would really have done that, would you?"
"Certainly."
Tom looked at him a moment or two, then shook his head sorrowfully and
said--
"I believe you--upon my word I do. I don't know why I do, but I do.
Pudd'nhead Wilson, I think you're the biggest fool I ever saw."
"Thank you."
"Don't mention it."
"Well, he has been requiring you to fight the Italian and you have
refused. You degenerate remnant of an honorable line! I'm thoroughly
ashamed of you, Tom!"
"Oh, that's nothing! I don't care for anything, now that the will's torn
up again."
"Tom, tell me squarely--didn't he find any fault with you for anything
but those two things--carrying the case into court and refusing to
fight?"
He watched the young fellow's face narrowly, but it was entirely
reposeful, and so also was the voice that answered:
"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 jack-pair 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 so when I arrived he was
all in a sweat about it, 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 stand a better chance of being found again than
stolen ones."
"Whe-ew!" whistled Wilson; "score another on the list."
"Another what?"
"Another theft!"
"Theft?"
"Yes, theft. That watch isn't lost, it's stolen. There's been another
raid on the town--and just the same old mysterious sort of thing that
has happened once before, as you remember."
"You don't mean it!"
"It's as sure as you are born! Have you missed anything yourself?"
"No. That is, I did miss a silver pencil-case that Aunt Mary Pratt gave
me last birthday--"
"You'll find it stolen--that's what you'll find."
"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."
"You are sure you missed nothing else?"
"Well, nothing of consequence. I missed a small plain gold ring worth
two or three dollars, but that will turn up. I'll look again."
"In my opinion you'll not find it. There's been a raid, I tell you. Come
in!"
Mr. Justice Robinson entered, followed by Buckstone and the
town-constable, Jim Blake. They sat down, and after some wandering and
aimless weather-conversation Wilson said--
"By the way, we've just added another to the list of thefts, maybe two.
Judge Driscoll's old silver watch is gone, and Tom here has missed a
gold ring."
"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 has been robbed of little things
like trinkets and teaspoons and such-like 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 room to worry about her own little losses."
"It's the same old raider," said Wilson. "I suppose there isn't any
doubt about that."
"Constable Blake doesn't think so."
"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, though
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 him again. Blake continued:
"She's a stoop-shouldered old woman with a covered basket on her arm, in
a black veil, dressed in mourning. I saw her going aboard the ferry-boat
yesterday. Lives in Illinois, I reckon; but I don't care where she
lives, I'm going to get her--she can make herself sure of that."
"What makes you think she's the thief?"
"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 so--and it just happens that they was
robbed houses, every time."
It was granted that this was plenty good enough circumstantial evidence.
A pensive silence followed, which lasted some moments, then Wilson
said--
"There's one good thing, anyway. She can't either pawn or sell Count
Luigi's costly Indian dagger."
"My!" said Tom, "is that gone?"
"Yes."
"Well, that was a haul! But why can't she pawn it or sell it?"
"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."
"Did they offer a reward?" asked Buckstone.
"Yes; five hundred dollars for the knife, and five hundred more for the
thief."
"What a leather-headed idea!" exclaimed the constable. "The thief
da'sn't go near them, nor send anybody. Whoever goes is going to get
himself nabbed, for their ain't any pawnbroker that's going to lose the
chance to--"
If anybody had noticed Tom's face at that time, the gray-green 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 gone--and this
time it's for good. Oh, this is awful--I don't know what to do, nor
which way to turn!"
"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 explain to you how
the thing was done."
There were strong signs of a general curiosity, and Buckstone said--
"Well, you have whetted us up pretty sharp, Wilson, and I'm free to say
that if you don't mind telling us in confidence--"
"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 very soon afterward."
The constable was disappointed, and also perplexed. He said--
"It may all be--yes, and I hope it will, but I'm blamed if I can see my
way through it. It's too many for yours truly."
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 mayor--for
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 début 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 Tom.