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—­at which Wilson winked to himself privately.  Wilson did not ask if there was a newcomer in the house, but he asked questions that would have brought light-throwing answers as to that matter if Mrs. Pratt had had any light to throw; so he went away satisfied that he knew of things that were going on in her house of which she herself was not aware.

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.

CHAPTER 8 —­ Marse Tom Tramples His Chance

The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money. —­Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar

     Consider well the proportions of things.  It is better to be
     a young June bug than an old bird of paradise. —­Pudd’nhead
     Wilson’s Calendar

It is necessary now to hunt up Roxy.

At the time she was set free and went away chambermaiding, she was thirty-five.  She got a berth as second chambermaid on a Cincinnati boat in the New Orleans trade, the Grand Mogul.  A couple of trips made her wonted and easygoing at the work, and infatuated her with the stir and adventure and independence of steamboat life.  Then she was promoted and become head chambermaid.  She was a favorite with the officers, and exceedingly proud of their joking and friendly way with her.

During eight years she served three parts of the year on that boat, and the winters on a Vicksburg packet.  But now for two months, she had had rheumatism in her arms, and was obliged to let the washtub alone.  So she resigned.  But she was well fixed—­rich, as she would have described it; for she had lived a steady life, and had banked four dollars every month in New Orleans as a provision for her old age.  She said in the start that she had “put shoes on one bar’footed nigger to tromple on her with,” and that one mistake like that was enough; she would be independent of the human race thenceforth forevermore if hard work and economy could accomplish it.  When the boat touched the levee at New Orleans she bade good-by to her comrades on the Grand Mogul and moved her kit ashore.

But she was back in a hour.  The bank had gone to smash and carried her four hundred dollars with it.  She was a pauper and homeless.  Also disabled bodily, at least for the present.  The officers were full of sympathy for her in her trouble, and made up a little purse for her.  She resolved to go to her birthplace; she had friends there among the Negros, and the unfortunate always help the unfortunate, she was well aware of that; those lowly comrades of her youth would not let her starve.