ife was humbug and bunkum, 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.

CHAPTER 18

Roxana Commands

Gratitude and treachery are merely the two extremities of the same
procession. You have seen all of it that is worth staying for when the
band and the gaudy officials have gone by.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

THANKSGIVING DAY. Let us all give humble, hearty, and sincere thanks
now, but the turkeys. In the island of Fiji they do not use turkeys;
they use plumbers. It does not become you and me to sneer at Fiji.

--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

The Friday after the election was a rainy one in St. Louis. It rained
all day long, and rained hard, apparently trying its best to wash that
soot-blackened town white, but of course not succeeding. Toward midnight
Tom Driscoll arrived at his lodgings from the theater in the heavy
downpour, and closed his umbrella and let himself in; but when he would
have shut the door, he found that there was another person
entering--doubtless another lodger; this person closed the door and
tramped upstairs behind Tom. Tom found his door in the dark, and entered
it, and turned up the gas.