“Gain?  Oh, nothing that you would value, maybe.  But they are strangers making their way in a new community.  Is it nothing to them to appear as pets of an Oriental prince—­at no expense?  Is it nothing to them to be able to dazzle this poor town with thousand-dollar rewards—­at no expense?  Wilson, there isn’t any such knife, or your scheme would have fetched it to light.  Or if there is any such knife, they’ve got it yet.  I believe, myself, that they’ve seen such a knife, for Angelo pictured it out with his pencil too swiftly and handily for him to have been inventing it, and of course I can’t swear that they’ve never had it; but this I’ll go bail for—­if they had it when they came to this town, they’ve got it yet.”

Blake said: 

“It looks mighty reasonable, the way Tom puts it; it most certainly does.”

Tom responded, turning to leave: 

“You find the old woman, Blake, and if she can’t furnish the knife, go and search the twins!”

Tom sauntered away.  Wilson felt a good deal depressed.  He hardly knew what to think.  He was loath to withdraw his faith from the twins, and was resolved not to do it on the present indecisive evidence; but—­well, he would think, and then decide how to act.

“Blake, what do you think of this matter?”

“Well, Pudd’nhead, I’m bound to say I put it up the way Tom does.  They hadn’t the knife; or if they had it, they’ve got it yet.”

The men parted.  Wilson said to himself: 

“I believe they had it; if it had been stolen, the scheme would have restored it, that is certain.  And so I believe they’ve got it.”

Tom had no purpose in his mind when he encountered those two men.  When he began his talk he hoped to be able to gall them a little and get a trifle of malicious entertainment out of it.  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.”