By nine o’clock the town was humming with the news of the midnight duel, and there were but two opinions about it:  one, that Luigi’s pluck in the field was most praiseworthy and Angela’s flight most scandalous; the other, that Angelo’s courage in flying the field for conscience’ sake was as fine and creditable as was Luigi’s in holding the field in the face of the bullets.  The one opinion was held by half of the town, the other one was maintained by the other half.  The division was clean and exact, and it made two parties, an Angela party and a Luigi party.  The twins had suddenly become popular idols along with Pudd’nhead Wilson, and haloed with a glory as intense as his.  The children talked the duel all the way to Sunday-school, their elders talked it all the way to church, the choir discussed it behind their red curtain, it usurped the place of pious thought in the “nigger gallery.”

By noon the doctor had added the news, and spread it, that Count Angelo, in spite of his wound and all warnings and supplications, was resolute in his determination to be baptized at the hour appointed.  This swept the town like wildfire, and mightily reinforced the enthusiasm of the Angelo faction, who said, “If any doubted that it was moral courage that took him from the field, what have they to say now!”

Still the excitement grew.  All the morning it was traveling countryward, toward all points of the compass; so, whereas before only the farmers and their wives were intending to come and witness the remarkable baptism, a general holiday was now proclaimed and the children and negroes admitted to the privileges of the occasion.  All the farms for ten miles around were vacated, all the converging roads emptied long processions of wagons, horses, and yeomanry into the town.  The pack and cram of people vastly exceeded any that had ever been seen in that sleepy region before.  The only thing that had ever even approached it, was the time long gone by, but never forgotten, nor even referred to without wonder and pride, when two circuses and a Fourth of July fell together.  But the glory of that occasion was extinguished now for good.  It was but a freshet to this deluge.

The great invasion massed itself on the river-bank and waited hungrily for the immense event.  Waited, and wondered if it would really happen, or if the twin who was not a “professor” would stand out and prevent it.

But they were not to be disappointed.  Angela was as good as his word.  He came attended by an escort of honor composed of several hundred of the best citizens, all of the Angelo party; and when the immersion was finished they escorted him back home and would even have carried him on their shoulders, but that people might think they were carrying Luigi.

Far into the night the citizens continued to discuss and wonder over the strangely mated pair of incidents that had distinguished and exalted the past twenty-four hours above any other twenty-four in the history of their town for picturesqueness and splendid interest; and long before the lights were out and burghers asleep it had been decided on all hands that in capturing these twins Dawson’s Landing had drawn a prize in the great lottery of municipal fortune.