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$Unique_ID{bob01475}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Pudd'nhead Wilson
Chapter XVII}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{
}
$Date{1905}
$Log{}
Title: Pudd'nhead Wilson
Author: Twain, Mark
Date: 1905
Chapter XVII
Even popularity can be overdone. In Rome, along at first, you are
full of regrets that Michelangelo died; but by and by you only regret
that you didn't see him do it.
- Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar.
July 4. Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than
in all the other days of the year put together. This proves, by
the number left in stock, that one Fourth of July per year is now
inadequate, the country has grown so.
- Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar.
The summer weeks dragged by, and then the political campaign opened -
opened in pretty warm fashion, and waxed hotter and hotter daily. The twins
threw themselves into it with their whole heart, for their self-love was
engaged. Their popularity, so general at first, had suffered afterward;
mainly because they had been too popular, and so a natural reaction had
followed. Besides, it had been diligently whispered around that it was
curious - indeed, very curious - that that wonderful knife of theirs did not
turn up - if it was so valuable, or if it had ever existed. And with the
whisperings went chucklings and nudgings and winks, and such things have an
effect. The twins considered that success in the election would reinstate
them, and that defeat would work them irreparable damage. Therefore they
worked hard, but not harder than Judge Driscoll and Tom worked against them
in the closing days of the canvass. Tom's conduct had remained so letter-
perfect during two whole months, now, that his uncle not only trusted him
with money with which to persuade voters, but trusted him to go and get it
himself out of the safe in the private sitting-room.
The closing speech of the campaign was made by Judge Driscoll, and he
made it against both of the foreigners. It was disastrously effective. He
poured out rivers of ridicule upon them, and forced the big mass-meeting to
laugh and applaud. He scoffed at them as adventurers, mountebanks, side-
show riff-raff, dime museum freaks; he assailed their showy titles with
measureless derision; he said they were back-alley barbers disguised as
nobilities, peanut-peddlers masquerading as gentlemen, organ-grinders bereft
of their brother monkey. At last he stopped and stood still. He waited
until the place had become absolutely silent and expectant, then he delivered
his deadliest shot; delivered it with ice-cold seriousness and deliberation,
with a significant emphasis upon the closing words: he said that he believed
that the reward offered for the lost knife was humbug and buncombe, and that
its owner would know where to find it whenever he should have occasion to
assassinate somebody.
Then he stepped from the stand, leaving a startled and impressive hush
behind him instead of the customary explosion of cheers and party cries.
The strange remark flew far and wide over the town and made an
extraordinary sensation. Everybody was asking, "What could he mean by that?"
And everybody went on asking that question, but in vain; for the Judge
only said he knew what he was talking about, and stopped there; Tom said he
hadn't any idea what his uncle meant, and Wilson, whenever he was asked what
he thought it meant, parried the question by asking the questioner what he
thought it meant.
Wilson was elected, the twins were defeated - crushed, in fact, and left
forlorn and substantially friendless. Tom went back to St. Louis happy.
Dawson's Landing had a week of repose, now, and it needed it. But it
was in an expectant state, for the air was full of rumors of a new duel.
Judge Driscoll's election labors had prostrated him, but it was said that as
soon as he was well enough to entertain a challenge he would get one from
Count Luigi.
The brothers withdrew entirely from society, and nursed their
humiliation in privacy. They avoided the people, and went out for exercise
only late at night, when the streets were deserted.