The Wrong Twin

Wrong Twin, The

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Title: The Wrong Twin
Author: Harry Leon Wilson
Release Date: March 18, 2004 [EBook #11625]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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WRONG TWIN ***

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THE WRONG TWIN
BY HARRY LEON WILSON

1921

TO HELEN AND LEON

[Illustration: "THE GIRL NOW GLOWERED AT EACH OF THEM
IN TURN. 'I DON'T CARE!' SHE MUTTERED. 'I WILL, TOO, RUN
AWAY!'"]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"The girl now glowered at each of them in turn. 'I don't care!' she
muttered. 'I will, too, run away!'"
"'I can always find a little time for bankers. I never kept one waiting yet
and I won't begin now.'"
"The girl was already reading Wilbur's palm, disclosing to him that he
had a deep vein of cruelty in his nature."
"The malign eye was worn so proudly that the wearer bubbled
vaingloriously of how he had achieved the stigma."
CHAPTER I
An establishment in Newbern Center, trading under the name of the
Foto Art Shop, once displayed in its window a likeness of the twin sons
of Dave Cowan. Side by side, on a lavishly fringed plush couch, they
confronted the camera with differing aspects. One sat forward with a
decently, even blandly, composed visage, nor had he meddled with his
curls. His mate sat back, scowling, and fought the camera to the bitter
end. His curls, at the last moment, had been mussed by a raging hand.
This was in the days of an earlier Newbern, when the twins were four
and Winona Penniman began to be their troubled mentor--troubled lest
they should not grow up to be refined persons; a day when Dave
Cowan, the widely travelled printer, could rightly deride its citizenry as

small-towners; a day when the Whipples were Newbern's sole noblesse
and the Cowan twins not yet torn asunder.
The little town lay along a small but potent river that turned a few
factory wheels with its eager current, and it drew sustenance from the
hill farms that encircled it for miles about. You had to take a dingy way
train up to the main line if you were going the long day's journey to
New York, so that the Center of the name was often construed
facetiously by outlanders.
Now Newbern Center is modern, and grows callous. Only the other day
a wandering biplane circled the second nine of its new golf course, and
of the four players on the tenth green but one paid it the tribute of an
upward glance. Even this was a glance of resentment, for his partner at
that instant eyed the alignment for a three-foot putt and might be
distracted. The annoyed player flung up a hostile arm at the thing and
waved it from the course. Seemingly abashed, the machine slunk off
into a cloud bank.
Old Sharon Whipple, the player who putted, never knew that above
him had gone a thing he had very lately said could never be. Sharon has
grown modern with the town. Not so many years ago he scoffed at
rumours of a telephone. He called it a contraption, and said it would be
against the laws of God and common sense. Later he proscribed the
horseless carriage as an impracticable toy. Of flying he had affirmed
that the fools who tried it would deservedly break their necks, and he
had gustily raged at the waste of a hundred and seventy-five acres of
good pasture land when golf was talked.
Yet this very afternoon the inconsequent dotard had employed a
telephone to summon his car to transport him to the links, and had
denied even a glance of acknowledgment at the wonder floating above
him. Much like that is growing Newbern. There was gasping aplenty
when Winona Penniman abandoned the higher life and bought a
flagrant pair of satin dancing slippers, but now the town lets far more
sensational doings go almost unremarked.
The place tosses even with the modern fever of unrest. It has its

bourgeoisie, its proletariat, its radicals, but also a city-beautiful
association and a rather captious sanitary league. Lately a visiting
radical, on the occasion of a certain patriotic celebration, expressed a
conventional wish to spit upon the abundantly displayed flag. A
knowing friend was quick to dissuade him.
"Don't do it! Don't try it! Here, now, you got no freedom! Should you
spit only on their sidewalk, they