Doom.
He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring
the cabbages.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar.
April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on
the other three hundred and sixty-four.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar.
Wilson put on enough clothes for business purposes and went to work
under a high pressure of steam. He was awake all over. All sense of
weariness had been swept away by the invigorating refreshment of the
great and hopeful discovery which he had made. He made fine and accurate
reproductions of a number of his "records," and then enlarged them on a
scale of ten to one with his pantograph. He did these pantograph
enlargements on sheets of white cardboard, and made each individual line
of the bewildering maze of whorls or curves or loops which constituted
the "pattern," of a "record" stand out bold and black by reinforcing it
with ink. To the untrained eye the collection of delicate originals made
by the human finger on the glass plates looked about alike; but when
enlarged ten times they resembled the markings of a block of wood that
has been sawed across the grain, and the dullest eye could detect at a
glance, and at a distance of many feet, that no two of the patterns were
alike. When Wilson had at last finished his tedious and difficult work,
he arranged its results according to a plan in which a progressive order
and sequence was a principal feature; then he added to the batch several
pantograph enlargements which he had made from time to time in bygone
years.
The night was spent and the day well advanced, now. By the time he had
snatched a trifle of breakfast it was nine o'clock, and the court was
ready to begin its sitting. He was in his place twelve minutes later
with his "records."
Tom Driscoll caught a slight glimpse of the records, and nudged his
nearest friend and said, with a wink, "Pudd'nhead's got a rare eye to
business--thinks that as long as he can't win his case it's at least a
noble good chance to advertise his palace-window decorations without any
expense." Wilson was informed that his witnesses had been delayed, but
would arrive presently; but he rose and said he should probably not have
occasion to make use of their testimony. [An amused murmur ran through
the room--"It's a clean backdown! he gives up without hitting a lick!"]
Wilson continued--"I have other testimony--and better. [This compelled
interest, and evoked murmurs of surprise that had a detectable
ingredient of disappointment in them.] If I seem to be springing this
evidence upon the court, I offer as my justification for this, that I
did not discover its existence until late last night, and have been
engaged in examining and classifying it ever since, until half an hour
ago. I shall offer it presently; but first I wish to say a few
preliminary words.
"May it please the Court, the claim given the front place, the claim
most persistently urged, the claim most strenuously and I may even say
aggressively and defiantly insisted upon by the prosecution, is
this--that the person whose hand left the blood-stained finger-prints
upon the handle of the Indian knife is the person who committed the
murder." Wilson paused, during several moments, to give impressiveness
to what he was about to say, and then added tranquilly, "We grant that
claim."
It was an electrical surprise. No one was prepared for such an
admission. A buzz of astonishment rose on all sides, and people were
heard to intimate that the overworked lawyer had lost his mind. Even the
veteran judge, accustomed as he was to legal ambushes and masked
batteries in criminal procedure, was not sure that his ears were not
deceiving him, and asked counsel what it was he had said. Howard's
impassive face betrayed no sign, but his attitude and bearing lost
something of their careless confidence for a moment. Wilson resumed:
"We not only grant that claim, but we welcome it and strongly endorse
it. Leaving that matter for the present, we will now proceed to consider
other points in the case which we propose to establish by evidence, and
shall include that one in the chain in its proper place."
He had made up his mind to try a few hardy guesses, in mapping out his
theory of the origin and motive of the murder--guesses designed to fill
up gaps in it--guesses which could help if they hit, and would probably
do no harm if they didn't.
"To my mind, certain circumstances of the case before the court seem to
suggest a motive for the homicide quite different from the one insisted
on by the State. It is my conviction that the motive was not revenge,
but robbery. It has been urged that the presence of the accused brothers
in that fatal room, just after notification that one of them must take
the life of Judge Driscoll or lose his own the moment the parties should
meet, clearly signifies that the natural instinct of self-preservation
moved my clients to go there secretly and save Count Luigi by destroying
his adversary.
"Then why did they stay there, after the deed was done? Mrs. Pratt had
time, although she did not hear the cry for help, but woke up some
moments later, to run to that room--and there she found these men
standing and making no effort to escape. If they were guilty, they ought
to have been running out of the house at the same time that she was
running to that room. If they had had such a strong instinct toward
self-preservation as to move them to kill that unarmed man, what had
become of it now, when it should have been more alert than ever? Would
any of us have remained there? Let us not slander our intelligence to
that degree.
"Much stress has been laid upon the fact that the accused offered a very
large reward for the knife with which this murder was done; that no
thief came forward to claim that extraordinary reward; that the latter
fact was good circumstantial evidence that the claim that the knife had
been stolen was a vanity and a fraud; that these details taken in
connection with the memorable and apparently prophetic speech of the
deceased concerning that knife, and the final discovery of that very
knife in the fatal room where no living person was found present with
the slaughtered man but the owner of the knife and his brother, form an
indestructible chain of evidence which fixes the crime upon those
unfortunate strangers.
"But I shall presently ask to be sworn, and shall testify that there was
a large reward offered for the thief, also; and it was offered secretly
and not advertised; that this fact was indiscreetly mentioned--or at
least tacitly admitted--in what was supposed to be safe circumstances,
but may not have been. The thief may have been present himself. [Tom
Driscoll had been looking at the speaker, but dropped his eyes at this
point.] In that case he would retain the knife in his possession, not
daring to offer it for sale, or for pledge in a pawn-shop. [There was a
nodding of heads among the audience by way of admission that this was
not a bad stroke.] I shall prove to the satisfaction of the jury that
there was a person in Judge Driscoll's room several minutes before the
accused entered it. [This produced a strong sensation; the last
drowsy-head in the court-room roused up, now, and made preparation to
listen.] If it shall seem necessary, I will prove by the Misses Clarkson
that they met a veiled person--ostensibly a woman--coming out of the
back gate a few minutes after the cry for help was heard. This person
was not a woman, but a man dressed in woman's clothes." Another
sensation. Wilson had his eye on Tom when he hazarded this guess, to see
what effect it would produce. He was satisfied with the result, and said
to himself, "It was a success--he's hit!"
"The object of that person in that house was robbery, not murder. It is
true that the safe was not open, but there was an ordinary tin cash-box
on the table, with three thousand dollars in it. It is easily supposable
that the thief was concealed in the house; that he knew of this box, and
of its owner's habit of counting its contents and arranging his accounts
at night--if he had that habit, which I do not assert, of course;--that
he tried to take the box while its owner slept, but made a noise and was
seized, and had to use the knife to save himself from capture; and that
he fled without his booty because he heard help coming.
"I have now done with my theory, and will proceed to the evidences by
which I propose to try to prove its soundness." Wilson took up several
of his strips of glass. When the audience recognized these familiar
mementoes of Pudd'nhead's old-time childish "puttering" and folly, the
tense and funereal interest vanished out of their faces, and the house
burst into volleys of relieving and refreshing laughter, and Tom chirked
up and joined in the fun himself; but Wilson was apparently not
disturbed. He arranged his records on the table before him, and said--
"I beg the indulgence of the court while I make a few remarks in
explanation of some evidence which I am about to introduce, and which I
shall presently ask to be allowed to verify under oath on the witness
stand. 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 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. This signature is not his face--age can change that
beyond recognition; it is not his hair, for that can fall out; it is not
his height, for duplicates of that exist; it is not his form, for
duplicates of that exist also, whereas this signature is each man's very
own--there is no duplicate of it among the swarming populations of the
globe! [The audience were interested once more.]
"This autograph consists of the delicate lines or corrugations with
which Nature marks the insides of the hands and the soles of the feet.
If you will look at the balls of your fingers,--you that have very sharp
eyesight,--you will observe that these dainty curving lines lie close
together, like those that indicate the borders of oceans in maps, and
that they form various clearly defined patterns, such as arches,
circles, long curves, whorls, etc., and that these patterns differ on
the different fingers. [Every man in the room had his hand up to the
light, now, and his head canted to one side, and was minutely
scrutinizing the balls of his fingers; there were whispered ejaculations
of 'Why, it's so--I never noticed that before!'] The patterns on the
right hand are not the same as those on the left. [Ejaculations of 'Why,
that's so, too!'] Taken finger for finger, your patterns differ from
your neighbor's. [Comparisons were made all over the house--even the
judge and jury were absorbed in this curious work.] 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. That once
known to you, his fellow-twin could never personate him and deceive
you."
Wilson stopped and stood silent. Inattention dies a quick and sure death
when a speaker does that. The stillness gives warning that something is
coming. All palms and finger-balls went down, now, all slouching forms
straightened, all heads came up, all eyes were fastened upon Wilson's
face. He waited yet one, two, three moments, to let his pause complete
and perfect its spell upon the house; then, when through the profound
hush he could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall, he put out his
hand and took the Indian knife by the blade and held it aloft where all
could see the sinister spots upon its ivory handle; then he said, in a
level and passionless voice--
"Upon this haft stands the assassin's natal autograph, written in the
blood of that helpless and unoffending old man who loved you and whom
you all loved. There is but one man in the whole earth whose hand can
duplicate that crimson sign,"--he paused and raised his eyes to the
pendulum swinging back and forth,--"and please God we will produce that
man in this room before the clock strikes noon!"
Stunned, distraught, unconscious of its own movement, the house half
rose, as if expecting to see the murderer appear at the door, and a
breeze of muttered ejaculations swept the place. "Order in the
court!--sit down!" This from the sheriff. He was obeyed, and quiet
reigned again. Wilson stole a glance at Tom, and said to himself, "He is
flying signals of distress, now; even people who despise him are pitying
him; they think this is a hard ordeal for a young fellow who has lost
his benefactor by so cruel a stroke--and they are right." He resumed his
speech:
"For more than twenty years I have amused my compulsory leisure with
collecting these curious physical signatures in this town. At my house I
have hundreds upon hundreds of them. Each and every one is labelled with
name and date; not labelled the next day or even the next hour, but in
the very minute that the impression was taken. When I go upon the
witness stand I will repeat under oath the things which I am now saying.
I have the finger-prints of the court, the sheriff, and every member of
the jury. There is hardly a person in this room, white or black, whose
natal signature I cannot produce, and not one of them can so disguise
himself that I cannot pick him out from a multitude of his
fellow-creatures and unerringly identify him by his hands. And if he and
I should live to be a hundred I could still do it. [The interest of the
audience was steadily deepening, now.]
"I have studied some of these signatures so much that I know them as
well as the bank cashier knows the autograph of his oldest customer.
While I turn my back now, I beg that several persons will be so good as
to pass their fingers through their hair, and then press them upon one
of the panes of the window near the jury, and that among them the
accused may set their finger-marks. Also, I beg that these
experimenters, or others, will set their finger-marks upon another pane,
and add again the marks of the accused, but not placing them in the same
order or relation to the other signatures as before--for, by one chance
in a million, a person might happen upon the right marks by pure
guess-work once, therefore I wish to be tested twice."
He turned his back, and the two panes were quickly covered with
delicately-lined oval spots, but visible only to such persons as could
get a dark background for them--the foliage of a tree, outside, for
instance. Then, upon call, Wilson went to the window, made his
examination, and said--
"This is Count Luigi's right hand; this one, three signatures below, is
his left. Here is Count Angelo's right; down here is his left. Now for
the other pane: here and here are Count Luigi's, here and here are his
brother's." He faced about. "Am I right?"
A deafening explosion of applause was the answer. The Bench said--
"This certainly approaches the miraculous!"
Wilson turned to the window again and remarked, pointing with his
finger--
"This is the signature of Mr. Justice Robinson. [Applause.] This, of
Constable Blake. [Applause.] This, of John Mason, juryman. [Applause.]
This, of the sheriff. [Applause.] I cannot name the others, but I have
them all at home, named and dated, and could identify them all by my
finger-print records."
He moved to his place through a storm of applause--which the sheriff
stopped, and also made the people sit down, for they were all standing
and struggling to see, of course. Court, jury, sheriff, and everybody
had been too absorbed in observing Wilson's performance to attend to the
audience earlier.
"Now, then," said Wilson, "I have here the natal autographs of two
children--thrown up to ten times the natural size by the pantograph, so
that any one who can see at all can tell the markings apart at a glance.
We will call the children A and B. Here are A's finger-marks, taken at
the age of five months. Here they are again, taken at seven months. [Tom
started.] They are alike, you see. Here are B's at five months, and also
at seven months. They, too, exactly copy each other, but the patterns
are quite different from A's, you observe. I shall refer to these again
presently, but we will turn them face down, now.
"Here, thrown up ten sizes, are the natal autographs of the two persons
who are here before you accused of murdering Judge Driscoll. I made
these pantograph copies last night, and will so swear when I go upon the
witness stand. I ask the jury to compare them with the finger-marks of
the accused upon the window panes, and tell the court if they are the
same."
He passed a powerful magnifying-glass to the foreman.
One juryman after another took the cardboard and the glass and made the
comparison. Then the foreman said to the judge--
"Your honor, we are all agreed that they are identical."
Wilson said to the foreman--
"Please turn that cardboard face down, and take this one, and compare it
searchingly, by the magnifier, with the fatal signature upon the
knife-handle, and report your finding to the court."
Again the jury made minute examinations, and again reported--
"We find them to be exactly identical, your honor."
Wilson turned toward the counsel for the prosecution, and there was a
clearly recognizable note of warning in his voice when he said--
"May it please the court, the State has claimed, strenuously and
persistently, that the blood-stained finger-prints upon that
knife-handle were left there by the assassin of Judge Driscoll. You have
heard us grant that claim, and welcome it." He turned to the jury:
"Compare the finger-prints of the accused with the finger-prints left by
the assassin--and report."
The comparison began. As it proceeded, all movement and all sound
ceased, and the deep silence of an absorbed and waiting suspense settled
upon the house; and when at last the words came--
"They do not even resemble," a thunder-crash of applause followed and
the house sprang to its feet, but was quickly repressed by official
force and brought to order again. Tom was altering his position every
few minutes, now, but none of his changes brought repose nor any small
trifle of comfort. When the house's attention was become fixed once
more, Wilson said gravely, indicating the twins with a gesture--
"These men are innocent--I have no further concern with them. [Another
outbreak of applause began, but was promptly checked.] We will now
proceed to find the guilty. [Tom's eyes were starting from their
sockets--yes, it was a cruel day for the bereaved youth, everybody
thought.] We will return to the infant autographs of A and B. I will ask
the jury to take these large pantograph facsimilies of A's marked five
months and seven months. Do they tally?"
The foreman responded--
"Perfectly."
"Now examine this pantograph, taken at eight months, and also marked A.
Does it tally with the other two?"
The surprised response was--
"No--they differ widely!"
"You are quite right. Now take these two pantographs of B's autograph,
marked five months and seven months. Do they tally with each other?"
"Yes--perfectly."
"Take this third pantograph marked B, eight months. Does it tally with
B's other two?"
"By no means!"
"Do you know how to account for those strange discrepancies? I will tell
you. For a purpose unknown to us, but probably a selfish one, somebody
changed those children in the cradle."
This produced a vast sensation, naturally; Roxana was astonished at this
admirable guess, but not disturbed by it. To guess the exchange was one
thing, to guess who did it quite another. Pudd'nhead Wilson could do
wonderful things, no doubt, but he couldn't do impossible ones. Safe?
She was perfectly safe. She smiled privately.
"Between the ages of seven months and eight months those children were
changed in the cradle"--he made one of his effect-collecting pauses, and
added--"and the person who did it is in this house!"
Roxy's pulses stood still! The house was thrilled as with an electric
shock, and the people half rose as if to seek a glimpse of the person
who had made that exchange. Tom was growing limp; the life seemed oozing
out of him. Wilson resumed:
"A was put into B's cradle in the nursery; B was transferred to the
kitchen and became a negro and a slave, [Sensation--confusion of angry
ejaculations]--but within a quarter of an hour he will stand before you
white and free! [Burst of applause, checked by the officers.] From seven
months onward until now, A has still been a usurper, and in my
finger-record he bears B's name. Here is his pantograph at the age of
twelve. Compare it with the assassin's signature upon the knife-handle.
Do they tally?"
The foreman answered--
"To the minutest detail!"
Wilson said, solemnly--
"The murderer of your friend and mine--York Driscoll of the generous
hand and the kindly spirit--sits in among you. Valet de Chambre, negro
and slave,--falsely called Thomas à Becket Driscoll,--make upon the
window the finger-prints that will hang you!"
Tom turned his ashen face imploring toward the speaker, made some
impotent movements with his white lips, then slid limp and lifeless to
the floor.
Wilson broke the awed silence with the words--
"There is no need. He has confessed."
Roxy flung herself upon her knees, covered her face with her hands, and
out through her sobs the words struggled--
"De Lord have mercy on me, po' misable sinner dat I is!"
The clock struck twelve.
The court rose; the new prisoner, handcuffed, was removed.
Conclusion
It is often the case that the man who can't tell a lie thinks he is the
best judge of one.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar.
October 12, the Discovery. It was wonderful to find America, but it
would have been more wonderful to miss it.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's
Calendar.
The town sat up all night to discuss the amazing events of the day and
swap guesses as to when Tom's trial would begin. Troop after troop of
citizens came to serenade Wilson, and require a speech, and shout
themselves hoarse over every sentence that fell from his lips--for all
his sentences were golden, now, all were marvelous. His long fight
against hard luck and prejudice was ended; he was a made man for good.
And as each of these roaring gangs of enthusiasts marched away, some
remorseful member of it was quite sure to raise his voice and say--
"And this is the man the likes of us have called a pudd'nhead for more
than twenty years. He has resigned from that position, friends."
"Yes, but it isn't vacant--we're elected."
The twins were heroes of romance, now, and with rehabilitated
reputations. But they were weary of Western adventure, and straightway
retired to Europe.
Roxy's heart was broken. The young fellow upon whom she had inflicted
twenty-three years of slavery continued the false heir's pension of
thirty-five dollars a month to her, but her hurts were too deep for
money to heal; the spirit in her eye was quenched, her martial bearing
departed with it, and the voice of her laughter ceased in the land. In
her church and its affairs she found her only solace.
The real heir suddenly found himself rich and free, but in a most
embarrassing situation. He could neither read nor write, and his speech
was the basest dialect of the negro quarter. His gait, his attitudes,
his gestures, his bearing, his laugh--all were vulgar and uncouth; his
manners were the manners of a slave. Money and fine clothes could not
mend these defects or cover them up; they only made them the more
glaring and the more pathetic. The poor fellow could not endure the
terrors of the white man's parlor, and felt at home and at peace nowhere
but in the kitchen. The family pew was a misery to him, yet he could
nevermore enter into the solacing refuge of the "nigger gallery"--that
was closed to him for good and all. But we cannot follow his curious
fate further--that would be a long story.
The false heir made a full confession and was sentenced to imprisonment
for life. But now a complication came up. The Percy Driscoll estate was
in such a crippled shape when its owner died that it could pay only
sixty per cent. of its great indebtedness, and was settled at that rate.
But the creditors came forward, now, and complained that inasmuch as
through an error for which they were in no way to blame the false heir
was not inventoried at the time with the rest of the property, great
wrong and loss had thereby been inflicted upon them. They rightly
claimed that "Tom" was lawfully their property and had been so for eight
years; that they had already lost sufficiently in being deprived of his
services during that long period, and ought not to be required to add
anything to that loss; that if he had been delivered up to them in the
first place, they would have sold him and he could not have murdered
Judge Driscoll; therefore it was not he that had really committed the
murder, the guilt lay with the erroneous inventory. Everybody saw that
there was reason in this. Everybody granted that if "Tom" were white and
free it would be unquestionably right to punish him--it would be no loss
to anybody; but to shut up a valuable slave for life--that was quite
another matter.
As soon as the Governor understood the case, he pardoned Tom at once,
and the creditors sold him down the river.
Transcriber's Notes
Introduction:
1. Background.
Welcome to Project Gutenberg's presentation of Pudd'nhead Wilson. The
Italian twins in this novel, Luigi and Angelo, were inspired by a real
pair of Italian conjoined twins who toured America in the 1890s. These
were Giacomo and Giovanni Battista Tocci.
Homer Plessy was arrested for sitting in a whites-only passenger car on
June 7, 1892, and one month later he stood before Judge John Howard
Ferguson to plead his case. Plessy was an octaroon who could easily
"pass white." Four years later, the Supreme Court condoned "Separate but
Equal" laws in the famous Plessy vs. Ferguson case, which affirmed the
decision of Justice Ferguson in local court. These events in 1892
unfolded as Twain wrote this story, and changed the tale that he ended
up telling.
Arthur Conan Doyle released his best-selling collection of short
stories, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, on October 14, 1892. The
stories had already appeared in The Strand Magazine, one each month,
from July 1891 to June 1892. Holmes inspired Twain to add a component of
forensics to this story.
2. Dialect.
The soliloquies and conversations in the novel follow some general
rules. Twain introduced some variations in the spelling of dialect, and
sometimes the sound of dialect, but the end meaning seems to be the
same thing. Below is a table of some of these words, and alternatives
found in the text:
Dialect used in Pudd'nhead Wilson
English Dialect, Alternative, Another
and en
against agin, ag'in, ag'in'
because 'ca'se
going gwine, gwyne
more mo'
that dat
the de
then den
there dere, dah
these dese
they dey, deh
this dis
was 'uz
with wid
where whah
The above table was presented as a foundation which played into the
decision to make some emendations, below, that were not authorized by
Twain in 1899. One curious notation is that there was sometimes
pronounced dere, but also dah. Along the same lines, they most often
became dey, but in one case, deh.
3. This version.
Our version is based on the 1894 publication of this novel in Hartford.
This was Twain's original American release of the novel in book form. A
scanned copy of this book is available through Hathitrust. The book
contained some spaces in contractions: I 'll, dat 'll, had n't, could
n't, dis 'll, 't ain't / t ain't, and dey 'll are some examples. These
spaces were not retained in our transcription, and are not identified.
We did make a few other emendations. These emendations were checked with
the 1899 version of Pudd'nhead Wilson published by Harper & Brothers.
4. Notes on emendations.
The errors on Page 233 and Page 288, were not changed in the 1899 book,
so the case for making those changes may be found in the Detailed Notes
section. The remaining errors were corrected in the 1899 publication,
presumably authorized by Twain, who essentially made the case for those
emendations.
In the HTML version of this e-book, you can place your cursor over the
faint silver dotted lines below the changed text to discover the
original text. The Detailed Notes section of these notes describe these
emendations.
5. Other versions.
Please note that many print versions of Pudd'nhead Wilson include the
phrase 'spelling and usage have been brought into conformity with modern
usage,' and editors have been liberal with their renditions of Twain's
story.
6. Detailed notes.
The Detailed Notes Section also includes issues that have come up during
transcription. One common issue is that words are sometimes split into
two lines for spacing purposes in the original text. These words are
hyphenated in the physical book, but there is a question sometimes as to
whether the hyphen should be retained in transcription. The reasons
behind some of these decisions are itemized.
Production Notes Section:
1. Chapter Titles.
The Chapter Titles, such as Doom in Chapter XXI., were not part of
Twain's book. They remain from another version of this book. The chapter
titles are used in PG's Mark Twain index, so we have retained them.
2. The Author's Note.
The Author's Note to Those Extraordinary Twins is actually the author's
introduction to the novella, Those Extraordinary Twins. Twain originally
produced this book with two parts: Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those
Extraordinary Twins.
Project Gutenberg offers both stories, so we present the Author's Note
as the Introduction to Those Extraordinary Twins, as Twain intended. If
you want to read the Author's Note, please visit the Introduction of our
production of the novella, Those Extraordinary Twins.
Detailed Notes Section:
Chapter 1.
On Page 19, barber-shop was hyphenated between two lines for spacing.
The 1899 Harper & Brothers version used "barber shop" in this spot. Even
though barber-shop cannot be transcribed as such, the assumption is that
the 1894 version put in the hyphen by mistake. We transcribed the word
barber shop.
Chapter 2.
On Page 34, changed ca'se to 'ca'se, used as dialect for because, in the
clause: "but dat's ca'se it's mine." The author used 'ca'se eighteen
other times as dialect for because, and did not use ca'se again.
Chapter 3.
On Page 43, insert missing period after tomb.
Chapter 6.
On Page 81, add a comma after door: "The twins took a position near the
door the widow stood at Luigi's side, Rowena stood beside Angelo,..."
Chapter 7.
On Page 88, add a period after fault in the sentence: The Judge laid
himself out hospitably to make them have a good time, and if there was a
defect anywhere it was not his fault.
Chapter 9.
On Page 114, there is a word missing before the semicolon in the clause:
Tom sprang up and seized a billet of wood and raised ; the 1899 Harper
& Brothers version provided the missing word, "it."
Chapter 11.
On Page 131, change dicision to decision in the clause: Luigi reserved
his dicision.
On Page 133, change comma to a period after years in the sentence: "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,"
On Page 149, Correct spelling of Cappello to Capello. The surname of the
twins was Capello in the letter on page 73, and two other times in
Chapter 6.
Chapter 13.
On Page 167, Change ' to " in the sentence: "Why, my boy, you look
desolate. Don't take it so hard. Try and forget you have been kicked.'
On Page 176, ship-shape was hyphenated and split between two lines for
spacing. The 1899 Harper & Brothers version of the novel used shipshape,
and so will we.
Chapter 14.
On Page 182, changed period after hatching to question mark in the
sentence: What could be hatching.
On Page 184, remove comma after sha'n't, in the clause: but if he
doesn't, I sha'n't, let on.
On Page 189, low-down is hyphenated and split between two lines for
spacing. On Page 188, low-down is spelled with a hyphen, and on pages
241 and 243 low-downest is also hyphenated. There is no occurrence of
lowdown. We transcribed low-down with a hyphen: like a ornery low-down
hound!
Chapter 16.
On Page 216, Changed ? to ! in the sentence: En keep on sayin' it?
Chapter 18.
On Page 229, Changed 'against to against in the clause: with fury
'against the planter's wife.
On Page 233, Changed de to den in the clause "en de good gracious me."
The author always used den for then, except in this case. De is dialect
for the. Twain did not correct this in the 1899 Harper & Brothers
version of the novel, but den makes more sense then de. Roxy was
floating on the river, and then she cried good gracious me, because she
spotted the Grand Mogul.
Changed day to dey in two places. The novel used dey as dialect for they
regularly, and almost consistently, except in two cases. Both cases were
presumed errata:
• On Page 232, en day warn't gwine to hurry
• On Page 229, en day knows how to whale 'em, too.
Chapter 19.
On Page 253, back-yard is hyphenated and split between two lines for
spacing. The 1899 Harper & Brothers version of the novel used back-yard,
and so will we.
Chapter 20.
On Page 273, changed countenence to countenance in the clause: "I don't
know about that," and Tom's countenence darkened,...
Chapter 21.
On Page 288, there are two quotes made by the crowd in double quotes.
Twain did not correct this in the 1899 version of the novel by Harper &
Brothers. But these lines are surrounded by Wilson's narrative, which is
already in double quotes. Therefore, we have used single quotes for the
two remarks from the gallery.
• 'Why, it's so--I never noticed that before!'
• 'Why, that's so, too!'
Conclusion.
On Page 302, removed in from the sentence: "But we cannot follow his
curious fate further--that in would be a long story."