“Tom, I am ashamed of you! I don’t see how you could treat
your good old uncle so. I am a better friend of his than you are;
for if I had known the circumstances I would have kept that case out
of court until I got word to him and let him have the gentleman’s chance.”
“You would?” exclaimed Tom, with lively surprise. “And it your
first case! And you know perfectly well there never would have _been_
any case if he had got that chance, don’t you? And you’d have finished
your days a pauper nobody, instead of being an actually launched and
recognized lawyer today. And you would really have done that, would you?”
“Certainly.”
Tom looked at him a moment or two, then shook his head sorrowfully and said:
“I believe you–upon my word I do. I don’t know why I do, but I do.
Pudd’nhead Wilson, I think you’re the biggest fool I ever saw.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Well, he has been requiring you to fight the Italian,
and you have refused. You degenerate remnant of an honorable line!
I’m thoroughly ashamed of you, Tom!”
“Oh, that’s nothing! I don’t care for anything, now that the will’s
torn up again.”
“Tom, tell me squarely–didn’t he find any fault with you for anything
but those two things–carrying the case into court and refusing to fight?”
He watched the young fellow’s face narrowly, but it was
entirely reposeful, and so also was the voice that answered:
“No, he didn’t find any other fault with me. If he had had any to find,
he would have begun yesterday, for he was just in the humor for it.
He drove that jack-pair around town and showed them the sights,
and when he came home he couldn’t find his father’s old silver watch
that don’t keep time and he thinks so much of, and couldn’t remember
what he did with it three or four days ago when he saw it last,
and when I suggested that it probably wasn’t lost but stolen,
it put him in a regular passion, and he said I was a fool–
which convinced me, without any trouble, that that was just what he
was afraid _had_ happened, himself, but did not want to believe it,
because lost things stand a better chance of being found again
than stolen ones.”
“Whe-ew!” whistled Wilson. “Score another one the list.”
“Another what?”
“Another theft!”
“Theft?”
“Yes, theft. That watch isn’t lost, it’s stolen. There’s been another
raid on the town–and just the same old mysterious sort of thing
that has happened once before, as you remember.”
“You don’t mean it!”
“It’s as sure as you are born! Have you missed anything yourself?”
“No. That is, I did miss a silver pencil case that Aunt Mary Pratt
gave me last birthday–”
“You’ll find it stolen–that’s what you’ll find.”
“No, I sha’n’t; for when I suggested theft about the watch and got
such a rap, I went and examined my room, and the pencil case was missing,
but it was only mislaid, and I found it again.”
“You are sure you missed nothing else?”
“Well, nothing of consequence. I missed a small plain gold ring worth
two or three dollars, but that will turn up. I’ll look again.”
“In my opinion you’ll not find it. There’s been a raid, I tell you.
Come _in!_”
Mr. Justice Robinson entered, followed by Buckstone and
the town constable, Jim Blake. They sat down, and after some
wandering and aimless weather-conversation Wilson said:
“By the way, We’ve just added another to the list of thefts, maybe two.
Judge Driscoll’s old silver watch is gone, and Tom here
has missed a gold ring.”
“Well, it is a bad business,” said the justice, “and gets worse
the further it goes. The Hankses, the Dobsons, the Pilligrews,
the Ortons, the Grangers, the Hales, the Fullers, the Holcombs,
in fact everybody that lives around about Patsy Cooper’s had been
robbed of little things like trinkets and teaspoons and suchlike
small valuables that are easily carried off. It’s perfectly plain
that the thief took advantage of the reception at Patsy Cooper’s when
all the neighbors were in her house and all their niggers hanging around