I had not a doubt that my suppressions had been successful.
Therefore I was quite as happy in my guilt as I could have been if I had
been innocent.

But at last an accident exposed me. I went into the bath-room one
morning to make my toilet, and carelessly left the door two or three
inches ajar. It was the first time that I had ever failed to take the
precaution of closing it tightly. I knew the necessity of being
particular about this, because shaving was always a trying ordeal for
me, and I could seldom carry it through to a finish without verbal
helps. Now this time I was unprotected, but did not suspect it. I had no
extraordinary trouble with my razor on this occasion, and was able to
worry through with mere mutterings and growlings of an improper sort,
but with nothing noisy or emphatic about them--no snapping and barking.
Then I put on a shirt. My shirts are an invention of my own. They open
in the back, and are buttoned there--when there are buttons. This time
the button was missing. My temper jumped up several degrees in a moment,
and my remarks rose accordingly, both in loudness and vigor of
expression. But I was not troubled, for the bath-room door was a solid
one and I supposed it was firmly closed. I flung up the window and threw
the shirt out. It fell upon the shrubbery where the people on their way
to church could admire it if they wanted to; there was merely fifty feet
of grass between the shirt and the passer-by. Still rumbling and
thundering distantly, I put on another shirt. Again the button was
absent. I augmented my language to meet the emergency, and threw that
shirt out of the window. I was too angry--too insane--to examine the
third shirt, but put it furiously on. Again the button was absent, and
that shirt followed its comrades out of the window. Then I straightened
up, gathered my reserves, and let myself go like a cavalry charge. In
the midst of that great assault, my eye fell upon that gaping door, and
I was paralyzed.

It took me a good while to finish my toilet. I extended the time
unnecessarily in trying to make up my mind as to what I would best do in
the circumstances. I tried to hope that Mrs. Clemens was asleep, but I
knew better. I could not escape by the window. It was narrow, and suited
only to shirts. At last I made up my mind to boldly loaf through the
bedroom with the air of a person who had not been doing anything. I made
half the journey successfully. I did not turn my eyes in