One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie
is that a cat has only nine lives.
-- Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar
The company broke up reluctantly, and drifted toward their several homes, chatting with vivacity and all agreeing that it would be many a long day before Dawson's Landing would see the equal of this one again. The twins had accepted several invitations while the reception was in progress, and had also volunteered to play some duets at an amateur entertainment for the benefit of a local charity. Society was eager to receive them to its bosom. Judge Driscoll had the good fortune to secure them for an immediate drive, and to be the first to display them in public. They entered his buggy with him and were paraded down the main street, everybody flocking to the windows and sidewalks to see.
The judge showed the strangers the new graveyard, and the jail, and where the richest man lived, and the Freemasons' hall, and the Methodist church, and the Presbyterian church, and where the Baptist church was going to be when they got some money to build it with, and showed them the town hall and the slaughterhouse, and got out of the independent fire company in uniform and had them put out an imaginary fire; then he let them inspect the muskets of the militia company, and poured out an exhaustless stream of enthusiasm over all these splendors, and seemed very well satisfied with the responses he got, for the twins admired his admiration, and paid him back the best they could, though they could have done better if some fifteen or sixteen hundred thousand previous experiences of this sort in various countries had not already rubbed off a considerable part of the novelty in it.
The judge laid himself out hospitality to make them have a good time, and if there,
Accordingly he called for them, and on the way he told them all
about
Pudd'nhead Wilson, in order that they might get a favorable impression
of him in advance and be prepared to like him. This scheme succeeded --
the favorable impression was achieved. Later it was confirmed and
solidified when Wilson proposed that out of courtesy to the strangers
the usual topics be put aside and the hour be
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devoted to conversation upon
ordinary subjects and the cultivation of friendly relations and
good-fellowship -- a proposition which was put to vote and carried.
The hour passed quickly away in lively talk, and when it was ended, the lonesome and neglected Wilson was richer by two friends than he had been when it began. He invited the twins to look in at his lodgings presently, after disposing of an intervening engagement, and they accepted with pleasure.
Toward the middle of the evening, they found themselves on the road
to his house. Pudd'nhead was at home waiting for them and putting
in his time puzzling over a thing which had come under his notice
that morning. The matter was this: He happened to be up very early --
at dawn, in fact; and he crossed the hall, which divided his cottage
through the center, and entered a room to get something there.
The window of the room had no curtains, for that side of the house
had long been unoccupied, and
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young woman -- a young woman where properly no young woman belonged; for she was in
Judge Driscoll's house, and in the bedroom over the judge's private
study or sitting room. This was young Tom Driscoll's bedroom.
Toward noon he dropped in at the judge's and talked with Mrs. Pratt
about the great event of the day, the levee of the distinguished
foreigners at Aunt Patsy Cooper's. He asked after her nephew Tom,
and she said he was on his way home and that she was expecting him
to arrive a little before night, and added that she and the judge
were gratified to gather from his letters that he was conducting himself
very nicely and creditably --
He was now awaiting for the twins, and still puzzling over the problem of who that girl might be, and how she happened to be in that young fellow's room at daybreak in the morning.