ing 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?"

"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