s, 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 someday--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 plans 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 have not have bettered it
ourselves. Next, two or three memorable things that have 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 prophesies have
come true; some of the minor and some of the major ones have not been
fulfilled yet, and of course may neve