ion! And for twenty-three years no man
has ever suspected it!"

CHAPTER 21

Doom

He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring
the cabbages.

--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

APRIL 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on
the other three hundred and sixty-four.

--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

Wilson put on enough clothes for business purposes and went to work
under a high pressure of steam. He was awake all over. All sense of
weariness had been swept away by the invigorating refreshment of the
great and hopeful discovery which he had made. He made fine and accurate
reproductions of a number of his "records," and then enlarged them on a
scale of ten to one with his pantograph. He did these pantograph
enlargements on sheets of white cardboard, and made each individual line
of the bewildering maze of whorls or curves or loops which consisted of
the "pattern" of a "record" stand out bold and black by reinforcing it
with ink. To the untrained eye the collection of delicate originals made
by the human finger on the glass plates looked about alike; but when
enlarged ten times they resembled the markings of a block of wood that
has been sawed across the grain, and the dullest eye could detect at a
glance, and at a distance of many feet, that no two of the patterns were
alike. When Wilson had at last finished his tedious and difficult work,
he arranged his results according to a plan in which a progressive order
and sequence was a principal feature; then he added to the batch several
pantograph enlargements which he had made from time to time in bygone
years.

The night was spent and the day well advanced now. By the time he had
snatched a trifle of breakfast, it was nine o'clock, and the court was
ready to begin its sitting. He was in his place twelve minutes later
with his "records."

Tom Driscoll caught a slight glimpse of the records, and nudged his
nearest friend and said, with a wink, "Pudd'nhead's got a rare eye to
business--thinks that as long as he can't win his case it's at least a
noble good chance to advertise his window palace decorations without any
expense." Wilson was informed that his witnesses had been delayed, but
would arrive presently; but he rose and said he should probably not have
occasion to make use of their testimony. [An amused murmur ran through
the room: "It's a clean backdown! he gives up without hitting a lick!"]
Wilson