ack-alley
barbers disguised as nobilities, peanut peddlers masquerading as
gentlemen, organ-grinders bereft of their brother monkey. At last he
stopped and stood still. He waited until the place had become absolutely
silent and expectant, then he delivered his deadliest shot; delivered it
with ice-cold seriousness and deliberation, with a significant emphasis
upon the closing words: he said he believed that the reward offered for
the lost knife 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
soo