The theft raid which he had made upon the village turned out better than he had ventured to hope.  It produced the sum necessary to pay his gaming debts, and saved him from exposure to his uncle and another smashing of the will.  He and his mother learned to like each other fairly well.  She couldn’t love him, as yet, because there “warn’t nothing to him,” as she expressed it, but her nature needed something or somebody to rule over, and he was better than nothing.  Her strong character and aggressive and commanding ways compelled Tom’s admiration in spite of the fact that he got more illustrations of them than he needed for his comfort.  However, as a rule her conversation was made up of racy tales about the privacies of the chief families of the town (for she went harvesting among their kitchens every time she came to the village), and Tom enjoyed this.  It was just in his line.  She always collected her half of his pension punctually, and he was always at the haunted house to have a chat with her on these occasions.  Every now and then, she paid him a visit there on between-days also.

Occasions he would run up to St. Louis for a few weeks, and at last temptation caught him again.  He won a lot of money, but lost it, and with it a deal more besides, which he promised to raise as soon as possible.

For this purpose he projected a new raid on his town.  He never meddled with any other town, for he was afraid to venture into houses whose ins and outs he did not know and the habits of whose households he was not acquainted with.  He arrived at the haunted house in disguise on the Wednesday before the advent of the twins—­after writing his Aunt Pratt that he would not arrive until two days after—­and laying in hiding there with his mother until toward daylight Friday morning, when he went to his uncle’s house and entered by the back way with his own key, and slipped up to his room where he could have the use of the mirror and toilet articles.  He had a suit of girl’s clothes with him in a bundle as a disguise for his raid, and was wearing a suit of his mother’s clothing, with black gloves and veil.  By dawn he was tricked out for his raid, but he caught a glimpse of Pudd’nhead Wilson through the window over the way, and knew that Pudd’nhead had caught a glimpse of him.  So he entertained Wilson with some airs and graces and attitudes for a while, then stepped out of sight and resumed the other disguise, and by and by went down and out the back way and started downtown to reconnoiter the scene of his intended labors.

But he was ill at ease.  He had changed back to Roxy’s dress, with the stoop of age added to the disguise, so that Wilson would not bother himself about a humble old women leaving a neighbor’s house by the back way in the early morning, in case he was still spying.  But supposing Wilson had seen him leave, and had thought it suspicious, and had also followed him?  The thought made Tom cold.  He gave up the raid for the day, and hurried back