ing his accounts at
night--if he had that habit, which I do not assert, of course--that he
tried to take the box while its owner slept, but made a noise and was
seized, and had to use the knife to save himself from capture; and that
he fled without his booty because he heard help coming.
"I have now done with my theory, and will proceed to the evidences by
which I propose to try to prove its soundness." Wilson took up several of
his strips of glass. When the audience recognized these familiar
mementos of Pudd'nhead's old time childish "puttering" and folly, the
tense and funereal interest vanished out of their faces, and the house
burst into volleys of relieving and refreshing laughter, and Tom chirked
up and joined in the fun himself; but Wilson was apparently not
disturbed. He arranged his records on the table before him, and said:
"I beg the indulgence of the court while I make a few remarks in
explanation of some evidence which I am about to introduce, and which I
shall presently ask to be allowed to verify under oath on the witness
stand. Every human being carries with him from his cradle to his grave
certain physical marks which do not change their character, and by which
he can always be identified--and that without shade of doubt or question.
These marks are his signature, his physiological autograph, so to speak,
and this autograph can not be counterfeited, nor can he disguise it or
hide it away, nor can it become illegible by the wear and mutations of
time. This signature is not his face--age can change that beyond
recognition; it is not his hair, for that can fall out; it is not his
height, for duplicates of that exist; it is not his form, for duplicates
of that exist also, whereas this signature is each man's very own--there
is no duplicate of it among the swarming populations of the globe! [The
audience were interested once more.]
"This autograph consists of the delicate lines or corrugations with which
Nature marks the insides of the hands and the soles of the feet. If you
will look at the balls of your fingers--you that have very sharp
eyesight--you will observe that these dainty curving lines lie close
together, like those that indicate the borders of oceans in maps, and
that they form various clearly defined patterns, such as arches, circles,
long curves, whorls, etc., and that these patterns differ on the different
fingers. [Every man in the room had his hand up to the light now, and
his head canted to one side, and was minutely scruti