But when he left, he left in great spirits, for he perceived that just by pure luck and no troublesome labor he had accomplished several delightful things: he had touched both men on a raw spot and seen them squirm; he had modified Wilson's sweetness for the twins with one small bitter taste that he wouldn't be able to get out of his mouth right away; and, best of all, he had taken the hated twins down a peg with the community; for Blake would gossip around freely, after the manner of detectives, and within a week the town would be laughing at them in its sleeve for offering a gaudy reward for a bauble which they either never possessed or hadn't lost. Tom was very well satisfied with himself.
Tom's behavior at home had been perfect during the entire week.
His uncle and aunt had seen nothing like it before. They could find no fault with him anywhere.
Saturday evening he said to the Judge:
"I've had something preying on my mind, uncle, and as I am going away, and might never see you again, I can't bear it any longer.
I made you believe I was afraid to fight that Italian adventurer.
I had to get out of it on some pretext or other, and maybe I chose badly, being taken unawares, but no honorable person could consent to meet him in the field, knowing what I knew about him."
"Indeed? What was that?"
"Count Luigi is a confessed assassin."
"Incredible."
"It's perfectly true. Wilson detected it in his hand, by palmistry, and charged him with it, and cornered him up so close that he had to confess; but both twins begged us on their knees to keep the secret, and swore they would lead straight lives here; and it was all so pitiful that we gave our word of honor never to expose them while they kept the promise. You would have done it yourself, uncle."
"You are right, my boy; I would. A man's secret is still his own property, and sacred, when it has been surprised out of him like that. You did well, and I am proud of you."
Then he added mournfully, "But I wish I could have been saved the shame of meeting an assassin on the field on honor."
"It couldn't be helped, uncle. If I had known you were going to challenge him, I should have felt obliged to sacrifice my pledged word in order to stop it, but Wilson couldn't be expected to do otherwise than keep silent."
"Oh, no, Wilson did right, and is in no way to blame. Tom, Tom, you have lifted a heavy load from my heart; I was stung to the very soul when I seemed to have discovered that I had a coward in my family."
"You may imagine what it cost ME to assume such a part, uncle."
"Oh, I know it, poor boy, I know it. And I can understand how much it has cost you to remain under that unjust stigma to this time.
But it is all right now, and no harm is done. You have restored my comfort of mind, and with it your own; and both of us had suffered enough."
The old man sat awhile plunged in thought; then he looked up with a satisfied light in his eye, and said: "That this assassin should have put the affront upon me of letting me meet him on the field of honor as if he were a gentleman is a matter which I will presently settle--but not now. I will not shoot him until after election.
I see a way to ruin them both before; I will attend to that first.
Neither of them shall be elected, that I promise.
You are sure that the fact that he is an assassin has not got abroad?"
"Perfectly certain of it, sir."
"It will be a good card. I will fling a hint at it from the stump on the polling day. It will sweep the ground from under both of them."
"There's not a doubt of it. It will finish them."
"That and outside work among the voters will, to a certainty.
I want you to come down here by and by and work privately among the rag-tag and bobtail. You shall spend money among them;I will furnish it."
Another point scored against the detested twins! Really it was a great day for Tom. He was encouraged to chance a parting shot, now, at the same target, and did it.
"You know that wonderful Indian knife that the twins have been making such a to-do about? Well, there's no track or trace of it yet; so the town is beginning to sneer and gossip and laugh.
Half the people believe they never had any such knife, the other half believe they had it and have got it still.
I've heard twenty people talking like that today."
Yes, Tom's blemishless week had restored him to the favor of his aunt and uncle.
His mother was satisfied with him, too. Privately, she believed she was coming to love him, but she did not say so. She told him to go along to St. Louis now, and she would get ready and follow.
Then she smashed her whisky bottle and said:
"Dah now! I's a-gwine to make you walk as straight as a string, Chambers, en so I's bown, you ain't gwine to git no bad example out o' yo' mammy. I tole you you couldn't go into no bad comp'ny.
Well, you's gwine into my comp'ny, en I's gwine to fill de bill.
Now, den, trot along, trot along!"
Tom went aboard one of the big transient boats that night with his heavy satchel of miscellaneous plunder, and slept the sleep of the unjust, which is serener and sounder than the other kind, as we know by the hanging-eve history of a million rascals.
But when he got up in the morning, luck was against him again: a brother thief had robbed him while he slept, and gone ashore at some intermediate landing.
