The Mysterious stranger - Chapter 4

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Episode Transcript

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Chapter four of The Mysterious Stranger byMark Twain. This is a LibriVox recording.
All LibriVox recordings are in the publicdomain. For more information or to
volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read by Patrick seventy nine, Chapter

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four. It made an immense talk. Next day, then Father Peter paid
Solomon Isaacs in gold and left therest of the money with him at interest.
Also there was a pleasant change.Many people called at the house to

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congratulate him, and a number ofcool old friends became kind and friendly again.
And to top all, Margaret wasinvited to a party, and there
was no mystery. Father Peter toldthe whole circumstance just as it happened,

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and said he could not account forit, only it was the plain hand
of providence, so far as hecould see. One or two shook their
heads and said privately, it lookedmore like the hand of Satan. And
really that seemed a surprisingly good guessfor ignorant people like that. Some came

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slyly buzzing around and tried to coaxus boys to come out and tell the
truth, and promised they wouldn't evertell, but only wanted to know for
their own satisfaction, because the wholething was so curious. They even wanted
to buy the secret and pay moneyfor it. And if we could have

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invented something that would answer, butwe couldn't. We hadn't the ingenuity,
so we had to let the chancego by. And it was a pity.
We carried that secret around without anytrouble. But the other one,

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the big one, the splendid one, burned the very vitals of us.
It was so hot to get out, and we so hot to let it
out and astonish people with it,but we had to keep it in.
In fact, it kept itself in. Satan said it would, and it

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did. We went off every dayand got ourselves in woods so that we
could talk about Satan, and reallythat was the only subject we thought of
or cared anything about. And dayand night we watched for him and hoped
he would come, and we gotmore and more or impatient all the time.

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We hadn't any interest in the otherboys anymore, and wouldn't take part
in their games and enterprises. Theyseemed so tame after Satan, and their
doings so trifling and commonplace. Afterhis adventures in antiquity and the constellations and

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his miracles and meltings and explosions andall that. During the first day we
were in a state of anxiety onaccount of one thing, and we kept
going to Father Peter's house on onePreTect or another to keep track of it.

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That was the gold coin. Wewere afraid it would crumble and turn
into dust like fairy money if itdid, but it didn't. At the
end of the day no complaint hadbeen made about it. So after that
we were satisfied that it was realgold and dropped the anxiety out of our

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minds. There was a question wewanted to ask Father Peter, and finally
we went to the second evening alittle diffidently after drawing stores, and I
asked it as casually as I could, though it did not sound as casual

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as I wanted, because I didn'tknow how. What is moral sense?
Sir? He looked down, surprisedover his great spectacles, and said,
why, it is the faculty whichenables us to distinguish good from evil.

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It threw some light, but nota glare, and I was a little
disappointed, also to some degree embarrassed. He was waiting me to go on,
so in default of anything else tosay, I asked, is it
valuable? Valuable? Oh, heavenslad, it is a warm thing that

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lives man above the beasts that perish, and makes him heir to immortality.
This did not remind me of anythingfurther to say, so I got out
with the other boys and we wentaway with that indefinite sense you have often
had of being filled but not fattied. They wanted me to explain, but

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I was tired. We passed outthrough the parlor and there was Margaret at
the spinning teaching Mary Luga. Soone of the deserting pupils was back,
and an influential one too. Theother would follow. Margaret jumped up and

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ran and thanked us again with tearsin her eyes. And this was the
third time for saving her and heruncle from being turned into the street.
And we told her again we hadn'tdone it, but that was her way.
She never could be grateful enough foranything a person did for her,

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so we let her have her say. And as we passed through the garden
there was Wilhelm Needling sitting there waitingfor it was getting towards the edge of
the evening and he would be askingMargaret to take a walk along the river
with him when she was done witha lesson. He was a young lawyer

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and succeeding fairly well, and workinghis way along little by little. Oh.
He was fond of Margaret, andshe of him. He had not
deserted along with the others, buthad stood his ground all through. His
faithfulness was not lost on Market andher uncle. We hadn't so very much

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talent, but he was handsome andgood, and these are a kind of
talents themselves, and help along.He asked us how the lesson was getting
along, and he told him itwas about done, and maybe it was
so. He didn't know anything aboutit, but we judged it would please

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him, and it did, anddidn't cost us anything. End of Chapter four.