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 enclosing 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 today, likely, after the disgrace of carrying a personal assault case into a law-court."
A dejected knock. "Come in!"
Tom entered, and dropped 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 the 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 today. 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 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 one 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?"
