Aunt Patsy Character Analysis

“Italians! How romantic! Just think, ma—there’s never been one in this town, and everybody will be dying to see them, and they’re all ours! Think of that!”

Wilson began to study Luigi’s palm, tracing life-lines, heart-lines, head-lines, and so on, and noting carefully their relations with the cobweb of finer and more delicate marks and lines that enmeshed them on all sides; he felt of the fleshy cushion at the base of the thumb, and noted its shape; he felt of the fleshy side of the hand between the wrist and the base of the little finger, and noted its shape also; he painstakingly examined the fingers, observing their form, proportions, and a natural manner of disposing themselves when in repose. All this process was watched by the three spectators with absorbing interest, their heads bent together over Luigi’s palm, and nobody disturbing the stillness with a word.

The closing speech was made by Judge Driscoll, and he made it against both of the foreigners. It was disastrously effective. He poured out rivers of ridicule upon them, and forced the big mass-meeting to laugh and applaud. He scoffed at them as adventurers and mountebanks, side-show riff-raff, dime-museum freaks; he assailed their showy titles with measureless derision; he said they were back-alley barbers disguised as nobilities, pea-nut pedlers masquerading as gentlemen, organ-grinders bereft of the brother-monkey.