The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson
hrill Dawso
r almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with
We don't care to eat toadstools that think t
rwise he was not an object of distinction there. He remained at Yale two years, and then threw up the struggle. He came home with his manners a good deal improved; he had lost his surliness and brusqueness, and was rather pleasantly soft and smooth, now; he was furtively, and sometimes openly, ironical of speech, and given to gently touching people on the raw, but he did it with a good-natured semiconscious air that carried it off safely, and kept him
isite style and cut and fashion,-Eastern fashion, city fashion,-that it filled everybody with anguish and was regarded as a peculiarly wanton affront. He enjoyed the feeling which he was exciting, and paraded the town serene and happy all day; but the young fellows set a tailo
daily more and more so. He began to make little trips to St. Louis for refreshment. There he found companionship to suit him, and pleasures to his taste, along with more freedom
taking chances, privately, which might g
-thinkers' Society, and Pudd'nhead Wilson was the other member. The society's weekly discussions were now the old lawyer's main interest in life. Pudd'nhead wa
ork on a whimsical almanac, for his amusement-a calendar, with a little dab of ostensible philosophy, usually in ironical form, appended to each date; and the Judge thought that these quips and fancies of Wilson's were neatly turned and cute; so he carried a handful of them around, one day, and read them to some of the chief citizens. But irony was not for those people; their mental vision was not focussed for it. They read those playful trifles in the
re to go his own way and follow out his own notions. The other member of his pet organization was allowed the like liberty because he was a cipher in the estimation
cottage with her daughter Rowena, who was nineteen, romantic, amiable, and very pretty, bu
uxuries. But now, at last, on a flaming June day, she found herself happy; her tedious wait was ended; her year-worn advertisement had been answered; and not by a village applicant, oh, no!-this letter was from away off yonder in the dim great world to the No
e boys had rushed abroad in the town to spread the great news, for it was matter of public interest, and the public would wonder and not be plea
twins. We are Italians by birth, but have lived long in the various countries of Europe, and several years in the United States. Our names are Luigi
er been one in this town, and everybody will be dyi
they'll make
ey've been in Europe and everywhere! There's never been a traveler
l, but they'll make sti
and Robinson and such. Thursday they are coming, and this is only Tuesday; it's a cruel long time
was the beginning. Neighbor after neighbor, of both sexes, followed, and the procession drifted in and out all day and evening and all Wednesday and Thursday. The letter was read and re-read until i
had not arrived at ten at night-so the people had waited at the landing all day for nothing; they
ping. At last there was a knock at the door and the family jumped to open it. Two negro men entered, each carrying a trunk, and proceeded up-stairs toward the guest-room. Then entered the twin