 CHAPTER XXI. It was after sun-up now, but we went right on, and didn't tie up. The king and the duke turned out, by and by. Looking pretty rusty, but after they jumped overboard and took a swim, it chippered them up a good deal. After breakfast, the king he took a seat on the corner of the raft, and pulled off his boots, and rolled up his britches, and let his legs dangle in the water, so as to be comfortable, and let his pipe, and went to getting his Romeo and Juliet by heart. When he had got it pretty good, him and the duke began to practice it together. The duke had to learn him over and over again, how to say every speech, and he made him sigh, and put his hand on his heart, and after a while he said he done it pretty well. Only, he says, you mustn't bellow a Romeo that way, like a bull. You must say it's soft, and sick, and languishy, so Romeo. That is the idea, for Juliet's a dear sweet mere child of a girl, you know, and she doesn't bay like a jackass. Well next they got out a couple of long swords, that the duke made out of oak-laves, and began to practice the sword-fight, the duke called himself Richard III, and the way they laid on, and pranced around the raft, was grand to see, but by and by they came tripped, and fell overboard, and after that they took a rest, and had a talk about all kinds of adventures they'd had in other times along the river. After dinner the duke says, well, Capit, we'll want to make this a first-class show, you know, so I guess we'll add a little more to it. We want a little something to answer on course with anyway. What's on course, builds water? The duke told him, and then says, I'll answer by doing the Highland Flane, or the Sailor's Hornpipe, and you, well, let me see. Oh, I've got it. You can do Hamlet's Salidaqui. Hamlet which? Hamlet's Salidaqui. You know, the most celebrated thing in Shakespeare. Ah, it's pure sublime, sublime, always fetches the house. I haven't got it in the book. I've only got one volume, but I reckon I can piece it out from memory. I'll just walk up and down a minute, and see if I can call it back from recollection's faults. So he went to marching up and down, thinking and frowning, horrible every now and then. Then he would hoist up his eyebrows, next he would squeeze his hand on his forehead, and stagger back, and kind of moan, next he would sigh, and next he'd let on to drop a tear. It was beautiful to see him. By and by he got it. He told us to give attention. Then he strikes a most noble attitude, with one leg shoved forwards, and his arms stretched way up, and his head tilted back, looking up at the sky. And then he begins to rip and rave and grit his teeth, and after that, all through his speech, he howled, and spread around, and swelled up his chest, and just knocked the spots out of any acting ever I see before. This is the speech. I learned it easy enough while he was learning it to the king. To be or not to be, that is the bear-boatkin that makes calamity of so long life. For who would fair dels bear, till Burnham would do come to Dunn's Innane? But that, the fear of something after death, murders the innocent sleep, great nature's second course, and makes us rather sling the arrows of outrageous fortune, than fly to others that we know not of. There's the respect. Must give us pause. Wake, Duncan, with thy knocking. I would thou couldest. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time? The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the law's delay, and the quietest which his pangs might take in the dead waste and middle of the night, when churchards yawn in customary suits of solemn black. But that, the undiscovered country from whose born no traveler returns, breeze forth contagion on the world, and thus the native who of resolution, like the poor cat, I, the adage, is sick-lead or with care, and all the clouds that lowered o'er our housetops, with this regard their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action, tis a consummation devoutly to be wished, but soft you, the fair Ophelia, hope not thy ponderous and marble jaws, but get thee to a nunnery, go! Well, the old man he liked the speech, and he mightly soon got it, so he could do it first rate. It seemed like he was just born for it, and when he had his hand in and was excited, it was perfectly lovely the way he would rip and tear and rare up behind when he was getting it off. The first chance we got, the Duke he had some show bills printed, and after that, for two or three days as we floated along, the raft was a most uncommon lively place, for there weren't nothing but sword fighting and rehearsing, as the Duke called it, going on all the time. One morning, when we was pretty well down the state of Arkansas, we come in sight of a little one-horse town in a big bend, so we tied up about three-quarters of a mile above it, in the mouth of a creek, which was shot in like a tunnel by the cypress trees, and all of us but Jim took the canoe and went down there to see if there was any chance in that place for our show. We struck it mighty lucky. There was going to be a circus there that afternoon, and the country people was already beginning to come in, in all kinds of old shackley wagons and on horses. The circus would leave before night, so our show would have a pretty good chance. The Duke, he hired the courthouse, and we went around and stuck up our bills. They read like this, Shakespearean revival, wonderful attraction, for one night only, the world-renowned traditions. David Garrick, the younger of Drury Lane Theatre, London, and Edmund Keane, the elder of the Royal Haymarket Theatre, Whitechapel, Pudding Lane, Piccadilly, London, and the Royal Continental Theatres in their sublime Shakespearean spectacle entitled The Balcony Scene in Romeo and Juliet. Romeo, Mr. Garrick, Juliet, Mr. Keane, assisted by the whole strength of the company, new costumes, new scenery, new appointments, also the thrilling mastery and blood-curdling broadsword conflict in Richard III. Richard III, Mr. Garrick, Richmond, Mr. Keane, also by special request, Hamlet's Immortal Solidiquy, by the illustrious Keane, done by him three hundred consecutive nights in Paris, for one night only, on account of imperative European engagements. Admission twenty-five cents, children and servants, ten cents. Then we went loafing around the town. The stores and houses were most all old, shakely, dried-up frame concerns that hadn't ever been painted. They was set up three or four foot above ground on stilts, so as to be out of reach of the water when the river was overflowed. The houses had little gardens around them, but they didn't seem to raise hardly anything in them but gypsum weeds, and sunflowers and ash piles, and old curled-up boots and shoes and pieces of bottles and rags, and played-out tinware. The fences was made of different kinds of boards, nailed on at different times, and they leaned every which way, and had gates that didn't generally have but one hinge, a leather one. Some of the fences had been white-washed, some time or another, but the Duke said it was in Columbus time, like enough. There was generally hogs in the garden, and people driving them out. All the stores was along one street. They had white domestic awnings in front, and the country people hitched their horses to the awning posts. There was empty dry-good boxes under the awnings, and loafers roosting on them all day long, withling them with their barlow knives, and chowing tobacco, and gapping and yawning and stretching, a mighty ornery lot. They generally had on yellow-straw hats, most as wide as an umbrella, but didn't wear no coats nor waistcoats. They called one another Bill, and Buck, and Hank, and Joe, and Andy, and talked lazy and drolly, and used considerable many cuss words. There was as many as one loafer leaning up against every awning post, and he most always had his hands in his britches, pockets, except when he fetched them out to lint a chaw of tobacco or scratch. What a body was hearing amongst them all the time was, Give me a chaw, fatabacker, Hank. Caint, I hand-got, but one chaw left, asked Bill. Maybe Bill, he gives him a chaw. Maybe he lies and says he ain't got none. Some of them kinds of loafers never has ascent in the world, nor a chaw of tobacco of his own. They get all their chying by borrowing. They say to a fellow, I wished you'd lend me a chaw, Jack. I just this minute gave Ben Thompson the last chaw I had, which is a lie pretty much every time. It don't fool nobody but a stranger, but Jack ain't no stranger, so he says. You give him a chaw, did you? So did your sister's cat's grandmother. You pay me back the chaw's you already borrow off me. Leave Buckner then, I'll loan you one or two ton of it, and won't charge you no back interest another. Well, I did pay you back some of it once. Yes, you did. About six chaws. You borrowed store tobacco and paid back nigger head. Store tobacco is flat black plug, but these fellows mostly chaws the natural leaf twisted. When they borrow a chaw, they don't generally cut it off with a knife, but set the plug in between their teeth, and gnaw with their teeth, and tug at the plug with their hands till they get it in two. Then sometimes the one that owns the tobacco looks mournful at it when it's handed back, and says sarcastic. Here, give me the chaw, and you take the plug. All the streets and lanes was just mud, and they weren't nothing else but mud. Mud as black as tar and nigh about a foot deep in some places, and two or three inches deep in all the places. The hogs loafed and grunted around every wares. You see a muddy sow and a litter of pigs come lazing along the street, and wallop herself right down in the way where folks had to walk around her, and she stretched out and shut her eyes and wave her ears whilst the pigs was milking her, and look as happy as if she was on salary, and pretty soon you'd hear a loafer sing out, hi, sow boy, sick him, tigger, and away the sow would go, sweeling most horrible, with a dog or two swinging to each ear, and three or four dozen more are coming, and then you would see all the loafers get up and watch the thing out of sight, and laugh at the fun and look grateful for the noise. Then they'd settle back again till there was a dog fight. There couldn't anything wake them up all over, and make them happy all over like a dog fight, unless it might be putting turpentine on a stray dog and setting fire to him, or tying a tin pan to his tail, and see him run himself to death. On the river front some of the houses were sticking out over the bank, and they were bowed and bent, and about ready to tumble in. The people had moved out of them. The bank was caved away under one corner of some others, and that corner was hanging over. People lived in them yet, but it was dangerous some, because sometimes a strip of land as wide as a house caves in at a time. Sometimes a belt of land a quarter of a mile deep will start in and cave along and cave along till it all caves into the river in one summer. Such a town as that has to be always moving back, and back, and back, because the river's always gnawing at it. The nearer it got to noon that day, the thicker and thicker was the wagons and horses in the streets, and more coming all the time. Families fetched their dinners with them from the country, and eat them in the wagons. There was considerable whiskey drinking going on, and I see three fights. By and by somebody sings out. Here comes old Boggs in from the country for his little old monthly drunk. Here he comes, boys. All the loafers look glad. I reckon they was used to having fun out of Boggs. One of them says, wonder who he's going to chaw up this time. If he's a chawed up all the men, he's been a gon to chaw up in the last twenty year. He'd have considerable reputation now. Another one says, I wish old Boggs threatened me, cause then I'd know I'd warn going to die for a thousand years. Boggs comes a tearing along on his horse, whooping and yelling like an engine and singing out. Clear the track, Thar. I'm on the wall path, and the price of coffins is gone to raise. He was drunk and weaving about in his saddle. He was over fifty years old, and he had a very red face. Everybody yelled at him and laughed at him and sassed him, and he sassed back, and said he'd attend to them and lay them out in their regular turns. But he couldn't wait now because he'd come to town to kill old Colonel Sherburn, and his motto was, meet first and spoon vitals to top off on. He see'd me and wrote up and says, Where you come from, boy? You prepared to die? Then he wrote on. I was scared, but a man says, He don't mean nothing. He always a carrying on like that, when he's drunk. He's the best naturalist old fool in Arkansas. He never hurt nobody, drunk, nor sober. Boggs wrote up before the biggest store in town, and bent his head down so he could see under the curtain of the awning and yells, Come out here, Sherburn. Come out and meet the man you've swindled. You're the hound on after, and I'm a gon to have you too. And so he went on, calling Sherburn everything he could lay his tongue to, and the whole street packed with people listening and laughing and going on. By and by a proud looking man, about 55, and he was a heap the best dressed man in that town, two steps out of the store, and the crowd drops back on each side to let him come. He says to Boggs, mighty calm and slow, he says, I'm tired of this, but I'll endure it till one o'clock, till one o'clock mind no longer. If you open your mouth against me only once after that time, you can't travel so far, but I will find you. Then he turns and goes in. The crowd looked mighty sober, nobody stirred, and there weren't no more laughing. Boggs rolled off, black guarding Sherburn. As loud as he could yell, all down the street, and pretty soon back he comes and stops before the store, still keeping it up. Some men crowded around him and tried to get him to shut up, but he wouldn't. They told him it would be one o'clock in about 15 minutes, and so he must go home. He must go right away. But it didn't do no good. He cussed away with all his might, and throwed his hat down in the mud and rode over it, and pretty soon away he went, arranging down the street again with his gray hair afflying. Everybody that could get a chance at him tried their best to coax him off of his horse so that they could lock him up and get him sober. But it warn't no use. Up the street he would tear again and give Sherburn another cussing. By and by, somebody says, Go for his daughter! Quick, go for his daughter! Sometimes he'll listen to her. If anybody can persuade him, she can. So somebody started on a run. I walked down street, and waze, and stopped. In about five or ten minutes here comes Boggs again, but not on his horse. He was a reeling cross the street towards me, bare-headed with a friend on both sides of him, a halt of his arms, and hurrying him along. He was quiet and looked uneasy, and he weren't hanging back any, but was doing some of the hurrying himself. Somebody sings out, Boggs! I looked over there to see who said it, and it was that, Colonel Sherburn. He was standing perfectly still in the street, and had a pistol raised in his right hand, not aiming it, but holding it out with the barrel tilted up towards the sky. The same second I see a young girl coming on the run, and two men with her. Boggs and the men turned round to see who called him, and when they see the pistol, the men jumped to one side, and the pistol barrel came down slow and steady to a level. Both barrels cocked. Boggs throws up, both of his hands, and says, Oh Lord, don't shoot. Bang goes the first shot, and he staggers back, clawing at the air. Bang goes the second one, and he tumbles backwards on to the ground, heavy and solid, with his arms spread out. That young girl screamed out and comes rushing, and down she throws herself on, her father crying, and saying, Oh, he's killed him, he's killed him. The crowd closed up around them, and shouldered and jammed one another, with their necks stretched, trying to see, and people on the inside trying to shove them back and shouting, back, back, give him air, give him air. Colonel Sherburn, he tossed his pistol on the ground, and turned around on his heels and walked off. They took Boggs to a little drugstore, the crowd pressing around just the same, and the whole town following, and I rushed and got a good place at the window, where I was close to him and could see in. They laid him on the floor, and put one large Bible under his head, and opened another one, and spread it on his breast. But they tore open his shirt first, and I seen where one of the bullets went in. He made about a dozen long gasps, his breast lifting the Bible up, when he drawed in his last breath, and letting it down again when he breathed out. And after that, he lay still, he was dead. Then they pulled his daughter away from him, screaming and crying, and took her off. She was about sixteen, and very sweet and gentle looking, but awful pale and scared. Well, pretty soon the whole town was there, squirming and scrowging and pushing, and shoving to get at the window and have a look. But people that had the places wouldn't give them up, and folks behind them was saying all the time, Say now, you've looked enough, you fellows, paint right and paint fair for you to stay there all the time, and never give nobody a chance. Other folks has their rights, as well as you. There was considerable drawing back, so I slid out, thinking maybe there was going to be trouble. The streets was full, and everybody was excited. Everybody that seen the shooting was telling how it happened, and there was a big crowd packed around each one of these fellows, stretching their necks and listening. One long lanky man with long hair and a big white fur stovepipe hat on the back of his head, and a crooked handled cane, marked out the places on the ground where Bog stood, and where Sherburn stood, and the people following him around from one place to another, and watching everything he done, and bobbing their heads to show they understood, and stooping a little and resting their hands on their thighs, to watch him mark the places on the ground with his cane, and then he stood up straight and stiff, where Sherburn had stood, frowning and having his hat brimmed down over his eyes, and sung out bogs, and then fetched his cane down slow to a level, and says bang, staggered backwards, says bang again, and fell down flat on his back. The people that had seen the thing said he done it perfect, said it was just exactly the way it all happened, then as much as a dozen people got out their bottles and treated him. Well, by and by somebody said Sherburn ought to be lynched. In about a minute everybody was saying it, so away they went mad and yelling, and snatching down every clothesline they come to, to do the hanging with. End of Chapter 21, Recording by Linda Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, B.C. Chapter 22 of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Linda Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, B.C. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Chapter 22 They swarmed up towards Sherburn's house, a whooping and raging like engines, and everything had to clear the way, or get run over, and trumped to mush, and it was awful to see. Children was healing it ahead of the mob, screaming and trying to get out of the way, and every window along the road was full of women's heads, and there was nigger boys in every tree, in bucks and winches looking over every fence, and as soon as the mob would get nearly to them, they would break and scattle back out of reach. Lots of the women and girls was crying and taking on, scared most to death. They swarmed up in front of Sherburn's palings, as thick as they could jam together, and you couldn't hear yourself think for the noise. It was a little twenty-foot yard. Some sung out, tear down the fence, tear down the fence. Then there was a racket of ripping and tearing and smashing, and down she goes, and the front wall of the crowd begins to roll in like a wave. Just then Sherburn steps out, on the roof of his little front porch, with a double-barreled gun in his hand, and takes his stand, perfectly calm and deliberate, not saying a word. The racket stopped, and the wave sucked back. Sherburn never said a word, just stood there, looking down. The stillness was awful creepy and uncomfortable. Sherburn run his eyes slow along the crowd, and wherever it struck the people tried a little to outgaze him, but they couldn't. They dropped their eyes and looked sneaky. Then pretty soon Sherburn sort of laughed, not the pleasant kind, but the kind that makes you feel like when you're eating bread that's got sand in it. Then he says, slow and scornful, the idea of you lynching anybody, it's amusing, the idea of you thinking you had plucked enough to lynch a man. Because you're brave enough to tar and feather poor, friendless, cast out women that come along here, did that make you think you had grit enough to lay your hands on a man? Why, a man's safe in the hands of ten thousand of your kind, as long as it's daytime and you're not behind him. Do I know you? I know you clear through. I was born and raised in the south, and I've lived in the north, so I know the average all around. The average man's a coward. In the north he lets anybody walk over him that he wants to, and goes home and prays for a humble spirit to bear it. In the south, one man all by himself has stopped a stage full of men in the daytime and robbed a lot. Your newspapers call you a brave people so much that you think you are braver than any other people, whereas you're just as brave and no braver. Why don't your juries hang murderers? Because they're afraid the man's friends will shoot them in the back, in the dark, and it's just what they would do. So they always acquit, and then a man goes in the night with a hundred masked cowards at his back and lynches the rascal. Your mistake is that you didn't bring a man with you, that's one mistake, and the other is that you didn't come in the dark and fetch your masks. You brought part of a man, Buck Hartness, there, and if you hadn't had him to start you, you'd taken it out in blowing. You didn't want to come. The average man don't like trouble and danger. You don't like trouble and danger, but if only half a man, like Buck Hartness, there, shouts, lynch him, lynch him, you're afraid to back down, afraid you'll be found out to be what you are, cowards, and so you raise a yell and hang yourselves on that half a man's coat tail and come raging up here swearing what big things you're going to do. The pitifulness thing out is a mob. That's what an army is, a mob. They don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass and from their officers, but a mob without any man at the head of it is beneath pitifulness. Now the thing for you to do is to droop your tails and go home and crawl in a hole. If any real lynching is going to be done, it will be done in the dark, southern fashion, and when they come they'll bring their masks and fetch a man along. Now leave and take your half man with you, tossing his gun up across his left arm and cocking it when he says this. The crowd washed back sudden and then broke all apart, and when tearing off every which way and buck harkness he healed it after them, looking tolerable cheap. I could have stayed if I wanted to, but I didn't want to. I went to the circus and loathed around the backside till the watchman went by, and then dived in under the tent. I had my twenty dollar gold piece and some other money, but I reckoned I'd better save it, because there ain't no telling how soon you are going to need it. Away from home and amongst strangers that way. You can't be too careful. I ain't opposed to spending money on circuses when there ain't no other way, but there ain't no use in wasting it on them. It was a real bully circus. It was the splendidest sight that ever was when they all came riding in, two and two, a gentleman and a lady, side by side, the man just in their drawers and under shirts, and no shoes nor stirrups, and resting their hands on their thighs easy and comfortable. There must have been twenty of them, and every lady with a lovely complexion, and perfectly beautiful, and looking just like a gang of real sure enough queens, and dressed in clothes that cost millions of dollars, and just littered with diamonds. It was a powerful, fine sight. I never see anything so lovely, and then one by one they got up, and stood, and went a-weaving around the ring so gentle and wavy and graceful, the man looking ever so tall and airy and straight, with their heads bobbing and skimming along a way up there under the tent roof, and every lady's rose leafy dress, flopping soft and silky around her hips, and she looking like the most loveless parasol. And then faster and faster they went, all of them dancing, first one foot out in the air, and then the other, the horses leaning more and more, and the ringmaster going round and round the center pole, cracking his whip and shouting, hi, hi, and the clown cracking jokes behind him, and by and by all hands dropped the reins, and every lady put her knuckles on her hips, and every gentleman folded his arms, and then how the horses did lean over and hump themselves, and so one after the other they all skipped off into the ring, and made the sweetest bow I ever see, and then scampered out, and every body clapped their hands and went just about wild. Well, all through the circus they done the most astonishing things, and all the time that clown carried on it most killed the people. The ringmaster couldn't ever say a word to him, but he was back at him quick as a wink, with the funniest things a body ever said, and how he ever could think of so many of them, and so sudden and so pat, was what I couldn't now wit they understand, why I couldn't a thought of them in a year, and by and by a drunk man tried to get into the ring, said he wanted a ride, and said he could ride as well as anybody that ever was. They argued and tried to keep him out, but he wouldn't listen, and the whole show came to a standstill. Then the people began to holler at him, and make fun of him, and that made him mad, and he began to rip and tear, so that stirred up the people, and a lot of men began to pile down off the benches, and swarmed towards the ring, saying, knock him down, throw him out, and one or two women began to scream. So then the ringmaster he made a little speech, and said he hoped there wouldn't be no disturbance, and if the man would promise, he wouldn't make no more trouble, he would let him ride if he thought he could stay on the horse. So everybody laughed and said, all right, and the man got on. The minute he was on, the horse began to rip and tear and jump and comfort around, with two circus men hanging on to his bridle, trying to hold him, and the drunk man hanging on to his neck, his heels flying in the air every jump, and the whole crowd of people standing up shouting and laughing till tears rolled down, and at last, sure enough, all the circus men could do, the horse broke loose, and away he went, like the very nation, round and round the ring, with that sought laying down on him and hanging to his neck, with first one leg hanging most to the ground on one side, and then the other one on the other side, and the people just crazy. It weren't funny to me, though, I was all of a tremble to see his danger, but pretty soon he struggled up a straddle and grabbed the bridle, a reeling this way and that, and the next minute he sprung up and dropped the bridle and stood, and the horse are going like a house of fire too. He just stood up there, assailing around as easy and comfortable as if he weren't ever drunk in his life, and then he began to pull off his clothes and sling them. He shed them so thick they kind of clogged up the air, and altogether he shed 17 suits, and then there he was, slim and handsome and dressed the gaudiest and prettiest you ever saw, and he lit into that horse with his whip, and made him fairly hum, and finally skipped off, and made his bow and danced off to the dressing room, and everybody just a howling with pleasure and astonishment. Then the ringmaster, he see how he had been fooled, and he was the sickest ringmaster you ever see, I reckon, why it was one of his own men. He had got up that joke all out of his own head, and never let on to nobody. Well, I felt sheepish enough to be took in so, but I wouldn't have been in that ringmaster's place, not for a thousand dollars. I don't know, there may be bullier circuses than what that one was, but I never struck them yet. Anyways, it was plenty good enough for me, and whenever I run across it, it can have all of my custom every time. Well, that night we had our show, but there weren't only about twelve people there, just enough to pay expenses, and they laughed all the time, and that made the Duke mad, and everybody left, anyway, before the show was over, but one boy which was asleep, so the Duke and these Arkansas lunkheads couldn't come up to Shakespeare. What they wanted was low comedy, and maybe something ruther worse than low comedy, he reckoned. He said he could seize their style, so next morning he got some big sheets of wrapping paper and some black paint, and drawed off some handbills, and stuck them up all over the village. The bills said, at the courthouse, for three nights only, the world-renowned Tragedians, David Garrick the Younger, and Edmund Keane the Elder, of the London and Continental Theatres, in their thrilling tragedy of the King's Camelot Pard, or the Royal None Such, a mission fifty cents. Then at the bottom was the biggest line of all, which said, ladies and children not admitted. There, says he, if that line don't fetch them, I don't know Arkansas. End of Chapter Twenty-Two, Recording by Linda Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, BC Chapter Twenty-three of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Linda Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, BC The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Chapter Twenty-three Well, all day him and the King was heart-added, rigging up a stage and curtain and a row of candles for footlights, and that night the house was jam-full of men in no time, when the place couldn't hold no more, the Duke he quit tending door, and went around the back way and come on to the stage, and stood up before the curtain and made a little speech, and praised up this tragedy, and said it was the most thrilling this one that ever was, and so he went on abrogging about the tragedy, and about Edmund Keane the Elder, which was to play the main principal part in it, and at last when he got everybody's expectations up high enough, he rolled up the curtain, and the next minute the King came appraising out, on all fours, naked, and he was painted all over, ring-streaked and striped, all sorts of colors, as splendid as a rainbow, and, but never mind the rest of his outfit, it was just wild, but it was awful funny, the people most killed themselves laughing, and when the King got done, capering and capered off behind the scenes, they roared and clapped and stormed and ha-ha'd till he come back and done it over again, and after that they made him do it another time, well it would make a cow laugh to see the shines that old idiot cut, then the Duke he lets the curtain down and bows to the people, and says the great tragedy will be performed only two nights more, on accounts of pressing London engagements, where the seats is all sold already for it in Drury Lane, and then he makes them another bow, and says if he has succeeded in pleasing them, and instructing them, he will be deeply obliged if they will mention it to their friends, and get them to come and see it. Twenty people sings out, what, is it over, is that all? The Duke says yes, then there was a fine time, everybody sings out, sold, and rose up mad, and was a-going for that stage and them tragedeans, but a fine-looking man jumps up on a bench and shouts, hold on, just a word, gentlemen, they stop to listen, we are sold, mighty badly sold, but we don't want to be the laughing stock of this whole town, I reckon, and never hear the last of this thing as long as we live, no, what we want is to go out of here quiet, and talk this show up, and sell the rest of the town. Then we'll all be in the same boat, ain't that sensible? You bet it is, the judge is right, everybody sings out, all right then, not a word about any sell, go along home and advise everybody to come and see the tragedy. Next day you couldn't hear nothing around that town about how splendid the show was, house was jammed again that night, and we sold this crowd the same way. When me and the king and the duke got home to the raft, we all had a supper, and by and by, about midnight, they made Jim and me back her out and float her down the middle of the river, and fetch her in and hide her about two miles below town. The third night the house was crammed again, and they warn't newcomers this time, but people that was at the show the other two nights. I stood by the duke at the door, and I see that every man that went in had his pockets bulging, or something muffled up under his coat, and I see it warn't no perfumery neither, not by a long sight. I smell sickly eggs by the barrel, and rotten cabbages, and such things, and if I know the signs of a dead cat being around, and I bet I do, there was sixty-four of them went in. I shoved in there for a minute, but it was too various for me, I couldn't stand it. Well, when the place couldn't hold no more people, the duke gave a fellow a quarter, and told him to tend door for him a minute, and then he started around for the staged door. I after him, but the minute we turned the corner, and was in the dark, he says, Walk fast now till you get away from the houses, and then shin for the raft, like the dickens, was after you. I done it, and he done the same. We struck the raft at the same time, and in less than two seconds we was gliding downstream, all dark and still, and edging towards the middle of the river, nobody saying a word. I reckoned the poor king was in for a gaudy time of it with the audience, but nothing of the sort. Pretty soon he crawls out from under the wigwam, and says, Well, how'd the old thing pan out this time, duke? He hadn't been uptown at all. We never showed a light till we was about ten mile below the village. Then we lit up, and had a supper, and the king and the duke fairly laughed, their bones loose, over the way they'd served them people. The duke says, Greenhorns, flatheads, I knew the first house would keep mum, and let the rest of the town get roped in, and I knew they'd lay for us the third night, and consider it was their turn now. Well, it is their turn, and I'd give something to know how much they'd take for it. I would just like to know how they're putting in their opportunity. They can turn it into a picnic, if they want. They brought plenty, provisions. Them, rascillions, took in four hundred and sixty-five dollars in that three nights. I never see money hauled in by the wagon load, like that before. By and by, when they was asleep and snoring, Jim says, Don't it surprise you the way them kings carries on, huck? No, I says it don't. Why don't it, huck? Well, it don't, because it's in the breed. I reckon they're all alike. But, huck, these kings own its regular rapschillions. That's just what they is, these regular rapschillions. Well, that's what I'm saying. All kings is mostly rapschillions, as far as I can make out. Is that so? You read about them once. You'll see. Look at Henry VIII. This N is a Sunday school superintendent to him. And look at Charles II and Louis XIV, and Louis XV, and James II, and Edward II, and Richard III, and forty more. Besides all them Saxon-Heptarchies that used to rip around in old times and praise Cain, My, you ought to seen old Henry VIII when he was in bloom. He was a blossom. He used to marry a new wife every day and chop off her head the next morning. And he would do it just as indifferent as if he was ordering up eggs. Fetch him up, Nell Gwynne, he says. They fetch her up. Next morning, chop off her head. And they chop it off. Fetch up Jane Shore, he says. And up she comes. Next morning, chop off her head. And they chop it off. Ring up Fair Rosamund. Fair Rosamund answers the bell. Next morning, chop off her head. And he made every one of them tell him a tale every night. And he kept that up till he had hogged a thousand and one tales that way. And then he put them all in a book, and called it Doomsday Book, which was a good name and stated the case. You don't know King's, Jim, but I know him. And this old rip of iron is one of the cleanest I've struck in history. Well, Henry, he takes a notion. He wants to get up some trouble with this country. How does he go at it? Give notice? Give the country a show? No. All of a sudden, he heaves all the tea in Boston Harbor overboard, and wax out a declaration of independence, and dares them to come on. That was his style. He never give anybody a chance. He had suspicions of his father, the Duke of Wellington. Well, what did he do? Ask him to show up? No. Drowned him in a butt of Mamsey, like a cat. Suppose people left money laying around where he was. What did he do? He collared it. Suppose he contracted to do a thing, and you paid him, and didn't sit down there and see that he done it. What did he do? He always done the other thing. Suppose he opened his mouth. What then? If he didn't shut it up, powerful, quick, he'd lose a lie every time. That's the kind of a bug Henry was. And if we'd had him along, instead of our kings, he'd afford that town a heap worse than Arne done. I don't say that Arne is lambs, because they ain't. When you come right down to the cold facts, but they ain't nothing to that old ram anyway. All I say is, kings is kings, and you got to make allowances. Take them all around. They're a mighty ornery lot. It's the way they're raised. But does one do smell so like the Nation Huck? Well, they all do, Jim. We can't help the way a king smells. History don't tell no way. Now, the Duke. He's a tolerable, likely man in some ways. Yes, a Duke's different, but not very different. This one's a middling hard lot for a Duke. When he's drunk, there ain't no near-sighted man could tell him from a king. Well, anyways, I don't hanker for no mourn, um, yuck. These is all I can stand. It's the way I feel to, Jim, but we've got them on our hands, and we got to remember what they are and make allowances. Sometimes I wish we could hear of a country that's out of kings. What was the use to tell Jim these weren't real kings and dukes? It wouldn't done no good, and besides, it was just as I said. You couldn't tell them from the real kind. I went to sleep, and Jim didn't call me when it was my turn. He often done that. When I waked up, just at daybreak, he was sitting there, with his head down betwits his knees, moaning and mourning to himself. I didn't take notice nor let on. I knowed what it was about. He was thinking about his wife and his children, away up yonder, and he was low and homesick, because he hadn't ever been away from home before in his life, and I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for therein. It don't seem natural, but I reckon so. He was often moaning and mourning that way nights, when he judged I was asleep, and saying, Poe little Elizabeth, Poe little Johnny, it's mighty hard I spec. I ain't ever gone to see you no more, no more. He was a mighty good nigger, Jim was. But this time I somehow got to talking to him about his wife and young ones, and by and by he says, What makes me feel so bad this time, as because I hear something over yonder on the bank, like a whack or a slam while ago, and it mind me or the time I treat my little Elizabeth so ornery. She warned only about four year old, and she talked the scarlet fever, and had a powerful rough spell. But she got well, and one day she was astounding around, and I says to her, I says, Shit to do. She never done it, just stood da. Kinner smiling at me. It make me mad. And I says again mighty loud, I says, Don't you hear me? Shit to do. She just stood the same way. Kinner smiling up. I was a bullying, I says. I lay I make you mine. And with that I fetch her a slap side the head that saunt her sprawlin. Then I went into the other room and is gone about 10 minutes. And when I come back da was that door a standin open yet. And that chill standin most right in it. A lookin down and mornin, and the tears running down. My but a was mad. I was a gone for the chill. But just then it was a door that open innards. Just then long come da wind and slam it too. Behind da chill kerb bam. In my land da chill never move. My breath must hop out or me. And I feel so, so, I don't know how I feel. I crop out all trembling and crop around and open the door easily and slow. And poke my head in behind da chill. Soft and still. In all of a sudden I says pow. Just as loud as I could yell. She never budge. Oh hawk, I bust out a cryin and grab her up in my arms and say oh da poor little thing. Da lord god almighty, forgive poor old Jim. Cos he never gone to forgive himself as long he's live. Oh, she was plumb deaf and dumb. Hawk plumb deaf and dumb. And I'd been a-treatin her so. End of Chapter 23. Recording by Linda Marie Nielsen. Vancouver, B.C. Chapter Number 24. Of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Linda Marie Nielsen. Vancouver, B.C. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. By Mark Twain. Chapter 24. Next day, towards night, we laid up under a little willow, toe-head, out in the middle, where there was a village on each side of the river, and the duke and the king began to lay out a plan for working them towns. Jim he spoke to the duke, and said he hoped it wouldn't take but a few hours, because it got mighty heavy and tiresome to him when he had to lay all day in the wigwam tied with the rope. You see, when we left him all alone, we had to tie him, because if anybody happened on to him all by himself and not tied, it wouldn't look much like he was a runaway nigger. You know, so the duke said it was kind of hard to have to lay rope all day, and he'd cipher out some way to get around it. He was uncommon bright, the duke was, and he soon struck it. He dressed Jim up in King Lear's outfit. It was a long, curtain-calico gown, and a white horsehair wig and whiskers. And then he took his theater paint and painted Jim's face, and hands and ears and neck all over a dead, dull, solid blue, like a man that's been drowned nine days, blamed if he weren't the horrible looking outrage I ever see. Then the duke took and wrote out a sign on a shingle, so, sick Arab, but harmless when not out of his head. And he nailed that shingle to a lath and stood the lath up four or five foot in front of the wigwam. Jim was satisfied. He said it was a sight better than lying tied a couple of years every day, and trembling all over every time there was a sound. The duke told him to make himself free and easy, and if anybody ever come meddling around, he must hop out of the wigwam and carry on a little, and fetch a howl or two, like a wild beast, and he reckoned they would light out and leave him alone. Which was sound enough judgment, but you take the average man, and he wouldn't wait for him to howl. Why, he didn't only look like he was dead, he looked considerable more than that. These rapschillions wanted to try the none such again, because there was so much money in it, but they judged it wouldn't be safe, because maybe the news might have worked along down by this time. They couldn't hit no project that suited exactly, so at last the duke said he reckoned he'd lay off and work his brains an hour or two, and see if he couldn't put up something on the Arkansas village, and the king he allowed, he would drop or to the other village without any plan, but just trust in providence to lead him the profitable way, meaning the devil, I reckon. We had all brought store clothes when we stopped, last, and now the king put his on, and he told me to put mine on. I done it, of course. The king's duds was all black, and he did look real swell and starchy. I never knowed how clothes could change a body before. Why, before he looked like the onerous old rip that ever was. But now, when he'd take off his new white beaver, and make a bow and do a smile, he'd looked that grand and good and pious that you'd say he had walked right out of the ark, and maybe was an old Leviticus himself. Jim cleaned up the canoe, and I'd got my paddle ready. There was a big steamboat laying at the shore away up under the point, about three miles above the town, being there a couple of hours, taking on freight, says the king. Seen how I'm dressed, I reckon maybe I'd better arrive down from St. Louis or Cincinnati, or some other big place. Go for the steamboat, Huckleberry, we'll come down to the village on her. I didn't have to be ordered twice to go and take a steamboat ride. I fetched the shore a half a mile above the village, and then went scooting along the bluff bank in the easy water. Pretty soon we come to a nice innocent looking young country jake, setting on a log swabbing the sweat off his face, for it was powerful warm weather, and he had a couple of big carpet bags by him. Run her nose in shore, said the king. I'd done it. Where, you bound for young man? For the steamboat, going to Arlene's. Get aboard, says the king. Hold on a minute, my servant. He'll help you with them bags. Jump out and help the gentleman a doffus, meaning me, I see. I done so, and then we all three started on again. The young chap was mighty thankful, said it was tough work toting his baggage such weather. He asked the king where he was going, and the king told him he'd come down the river and landed at the other village this morning, and now he was going up a few miles to see an old friend on a farm up there. The young fellow says, When I first see you, I says to myself, It's Mr. Wilkes, sure, and he come mighty near getting here in time. But then I says again, No, I reckon it ain't him, or else he wouldn't be paddling up the river. You ain't him, are you? No, my name's Bloggitt, Alexander Bloggitt, Reverend Alexander Bloggitt. I suppose I must say, as I'm one, oh, the Lord's poor servants. But I still am just as able to be sorry for Mr. Wilkes for not arriving in time all the same if he's missed anything by it, which I hope he hasn't. Well, he don't miss any property by it, because he'll get that all right. But he's missed seeing his brother Peter die, which he mayn't mind. Nobody can tell as to that. But his brother would give anything in this world to see him before he died. Never talked about nothing else all these three weeks, hadn't seen him since they were boys together, and hadn't ever seen his brother William at all. That's the deaf and dumb one. William ate more than thirty or thirty-five. Peter and George were the only ones that come out here. George was the married brother. Him and his wife both died last year. Harvey and Williams, the only ones that's left now. And as I was saying, they haven't got here in time. Did anybody send him word? Oh yes, a month or two ago, when Peter was first took, because Peter said then that he'd sort of felt like he weren't going to get well this time. You see, he was pretty old, and George's good girls were too young to be much company. For him, except Mary, Jane, the red-headed one, and so he was kinder, lonesome after George and his wife died, and didn't seem to care much to live. He most desperately wanted to see Harvey and William too, for that matter, because he was one of them kind that can't bear to make a will. He left a letter behind for Harvey, and said he told in it where his money was hid, and how he wanted the rest of the property divided up, so George's girls would be all right, for George didn't leave nothing, and that letter was all they could get him to put a pen to. Why do you reckon Harvey don't come? Where does he live? Oh, he lives in England, Shetfield, preaches there. Hasn't ever been in this country. He hasn't had any too much time, and besides, he mightn't have got the letter at all, you know. Too bad, too bad he couldn't live to see his brother's poor soul. You going to Orleans, you say? Yes, but that ain't only a part of it. I'm going in a ship next Wednesday for Rio de Janeiro, where my uncle lives. It's a pretty long journey, but it'll be lovely. Wish I was going. Is Mary Jane the oldest? How old is the others? Mary Jane's nineteen, Susan's fifteen, and Joanna's about fourteen. That's the one that gives herself to good works, and has a hair-lip. Poor things to be left alone in the cold world, so, well, they could be worse off. Old Peter had friends, and they say ain't going to let them come to no harm. There's Hobson, the babbit's preacher, and Deacon Lott-Hovey, and Bran Rucker, and Abner Shackleford, and Levy Bell, the lawyer, and Dr. Robinson, and their wives, and the widow Bartley, and—well, there's a lot of them, but these are the ones that Peter was thickest with, and used to write about sometimes, when he wrote home, so Harvey'll know where to look for friends when he gets here. Well, the old man went on asking questions till he just fairly emptied that young fellow, blamed if he didn't inquire about everybody and everything in that blessed town, and all about the Wilks's, and about Peter's business, which was a Tanner, and about George's, which was a carpenter, and about Harvey's, which was a decentering minister, and so on, and so on. Then he says, what did you want to walk all the way up to the steamboat for? Because she's a big Orleans boat, and I was afraid she mightn't stop there. When they're deep, they won't stop for a hail. A Cincinnati boat will, but this is a St. Louis one. Was Peter Wilks well off? Oh yes, pretty well off. He had houses and land, and it's reckoned he left three or four thousand in cash hit up summers. Where did you say he died? I didn't say, but it was last night. Funeral tomorrow, likely? Yes, about the middle of the day. Well, it's all terrible sad, but we've all got to go, one time or another. So what we want to do is to be prepared, then we're all right. Yes, sir, it is the best way. My use to say that. When we struck the boat, she was about done loading, and pretty soon she got off. The king never said nothing about going aboard. So I lost my ride after all. When the boat was gone, the king made me paddle up another mile to a lonesome place, and then he got ashore and says, now hustle back right off and fetch the Duke up here. And the new carpet begs. And if he's gone over to the other side, go over there and get him, and tell him to get himself up, regardless. Shove along now. I see what he was up to, but I never said nothing, of course. When I got back with the Duke, we hid the canoe, and then they sat down on a log, and the king told him everything, just like the young fellow had said it, every last word of it. And all the time he was a-doing it, he tried to talk like an Englishman, and he done it pretty well, too, for a slouch. I can't imitate him, and so I ain't a-going to try to, but he really done it pretty good. Then he says, how are you on the deaf and dumb bilge water? The Duke said, leave him alone for that. And he had played a deaf and dumb person on the hastronic boards, so then they waited for a steamboat. About the middle of the afternoon, a couple of little boats came along, but they didn't come from high enough up the river, but at last there was a big one, and they hailed her. She sent out her y'all, and we went aboard, and she was from Cincinnati, and when they found we only wanted to go four or five mile, they were booming mad, and gave us a cussing, and said they wouldn't land us, but the king was calm. He says, if gentlemen can afford to pay a dollar a mile a piece, to be took on and put off in a y'all, a steamboat can afford to carry him, can't it? So they softened down, and said it was all right, and when we got to the village they yalled us ashore. About two dozen men flocked down, when they see the y'all a-coming, and when the king says, can any of you gentlemen tell me where Mr. Peter Wilkes lives? They give a glance at one another, and nodded their heads, as much to say, what did I tell you? Then one of them says, kind of soft and gentle, I'm sorry sir, but the best we can do is to tell you where he did live yesterday evening. Sudden as winking the ornery old creature went and to smash, and fell up against the man, and put his chin on his shoulder, and cried down his back, and says, alas, alas, our poor brother, gone, and we never get to see him, oh, it's too, too hard. Then he turns around blubbering, and makes a lot of idiotic signs to the duke on his hands, and blamed if he didn't drop a carpet-bag, and burst out a-crying, if they weren't the beatin'est lot, them two frauds, that ever I struck. Well, the men gathered around and sympathized with them, and said all sorts of kind things to them, and carried their carpet-bags up the hill for them, and let them lean on them, and cry, and told the king all about. His brother's last moments, and the king he told it all over again, on his hands to the duke, and both of them took on about that dead tanner like they'd lost the twelve disciples. Well, if ever I struck anything like it, I'm a nigger. It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race. End of Chapter 24 Recording by Linda Marie Nielsen Vancouver, B.C. Chapter 25 Of The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn The news was all over town in two minutes, and you could see the people tearing down on the run from every which way, some of them putting on their coats as they come. Pretty soon we was in the middle of a crowd, and the noise of the tramping was like a soldier march. The windows and door yards was full, and every minute somebody would say over a fence, is it them? And somebody trotting along with the gang would answer back and say, you bet it is. When we got to the house, the street in front of it was packed, and the three girls was standing in the door. Mary Jane was red-headed. But that don't make no difference. She was most awful beautiful, and her face and her eyes was all it up. Like Glory, she was so glad her uncles was come. The king he spread his arms, and Mary Jane she jumped for them, and the hair-lip jumped for the duke, and there they had it. Everybody most, least ways, women cried for joy to see them meet again at last and have such good times. Then the king he hunched the duke private. I see him do it, and then he looked around and see the coffin over in the corner on two chairs. So then him and the duke, with a hand across each other's shoulder, and to other hand to their eyes, walked slow and solemn over there, everybody dropping back to give them room, and all the talk and noise stopping, people saying shh, and all the men taking their hats off and drooping their heads. So you could I heard a pin fall, and when they got there they bent over and looked in the coffin and took one sight, and then they bust out a crying, so you could heard them two or leans most, and then they put their arms around each other's necks and hung their chins over each other's shoulders, and then for three minutes, or maybe four, I never see two men leak the way they done, and mind you, everybody was doing the same, and the place was damp, I never see anything like it. Then one of them got on one side of the coffin and the other on the other side, and they kneeled down and rested their foreheads on the coffin, and let on to pray all to themselves. Well, when it come to that, it worked the crowd like you never see anything like it, and everybody broke down and went to sobbing right out loud. The poor girls, too, and every woman nearly went up to the girls without saying a word and kissed them solemn on the forehead, and then put their hand on their head and looked up towards the sky, with the tears running down, and then busted out, and went off sobbing and swabbing and give the next woman a show, I never see anything so disgusting. Well, by and by the king he gets up and comes forward a little, and works himself up and slobbers out a speech, all full of tears and flap-doodle about its being a sore trial for him, and his poor brother to lose the deceased, and to miss seeing deceased alive after the long journey of four thousand miles, but it's a trial that sweetened and sanctified to us by this dear sympathy and these holy tears, and so he thanks them out of his heart and out of his brother's heart, because out of their mouths they can't, words being too weak and cold, and all that kind of rot and slush till it was just sickening, and then he blurbers out a p.s. goody goody amen, and turns himself loose, and goes to crying fit to bust, and the minute the words were out of his mouth, somebody over in the crowd struck up the doxel joyer, and everybody joined in with all their might, and it just warmed you up and made you feel as good as church letting out. Music is a good thing, and after all that soul butter and hogwash, I never see it freshen up things so, and sound so honest and bully. Then the king begins to work his jaw again, and says how him and his nieces would be glad if a few of the main principal friends of the family would take supper here with them this evening, and help set up with the ashes of the deceased, and says if his poor brother laying yonder could speak he knows who he would name, for they was names that was very dear to him, and mentioned often in his letters, and so he will name the same to wit, as follows Viz, Reverend Mr. Hobson, and Deacon Lott-Hovey, and Mr. Ben Rucker, and Abner Shackleford, and Levi Bell, and Dr. Robinson, and their wives, and the widow Bartley. Reverend Hobson and Dr. Robinson were down to the end of the town hunting together, that is, I mean the doctor was shipping a sick man to the other world, and the preacher was pointing him right. Lawyer Bell was a way up to Louisville on business, but the rest was on hand, and so they all come and shook hands with the king, and thank him, and talk to him, and then they shook hands with the duke, and didn't say nothing, but just kept a smiling and bobbing their heads like a parcel of sap heads, whilst he made all sorts of signs with his hands, and said goo-goo, goo-goo-goo, all the time, like a baby that can't talk. So the king, he blattered along, and managed to inquire about pretty much everybody and dog in town by his name, and mentioned all sorts of little things that happened one time or another in the town, or to George's family, or to Peter, and he always let on that Peter wrote him the things, but that was a lie. He got every blessed one of them out of that young flathead that we canude up to the steamboat. Then Mary Jane, she fetched the letter her father left behind, and the king read it out loud and cried over it. It give the dwelling house a three thousand dollars gold to the girls, and it give the ten-yard, which was doing a good business, along with some other houses and land, worth about seven thousand, and three thousand dollars in gold to Harvey and William, and told where the six thousand cash was hid down the cellar. So these two frauds said they'd go and fetch it up, and have everything square and above board, and told me to come with the candle. We shut the cellar door behind us, and when they found the bag, they spill it out on the floor, and it was a lovely sight, all them yellow boys. My, the way the king's eyes did shine, he slaps the duke on the shoulder and says, Oh, this ain't bully nor nothing. Oh, no, I reckon not. Why, bully, it beats the none such, don't it? The duke allowed it did. They pawed the yellow boys, and sifted them through their fingers, and let them jingle down on the floor, and the king says, It ain't no use talking, being brothers to a rich dead man, and representatives of foreign heirs that's got left is the line for you and me, bilge. This year comes of trust to Providence. It's the best way in the long run. I've tried them all, and there ain't no better way. Most everybody would have been satisfied with the pile and took it on trust, but no, they must count it. So they counts it, and it comes out four hundred and fifteen dollars short, says the king. During him, I wonder what he done with that four hundred and fifteen dollars. They worried over that a while and ransacked all around for it. Then the duke says, Well, he was a pretty sick man, and likely he made a mistake. I reckon that's the way of it. The best way is to let it go and keep still about it. We can spare it. Oh, shucks. Yes, we can spare it. I don't nothing about that. It's the count I'm thinking about. We want to be awful square and open and aboveboard here. You know, we want to lug this era money upstairs and count it before everybody. Then there ain't nothing suspicious. But when the dead man says they're six thousand dollars, you know, we don't want to hold on, says the duke. Let's make up the deficit. And he began to haul out yellow boys out of his pocket. It is a most amazing good idea, duke. You have got a rattling clever head on you, says the king. Blessed if the old nonsuch ain't a hepnen us out again. And he began to haul out yellow jackets and stack them up. It most busted them. But they made up the six thousand clean and clear. Say, says the duke, I got another idea. Let's go upstairs and count this money and then take and give it to the girls. Good land, duke. Let me hug you. It's the most dazzling idea I ever a man struck. You have certainly got the most astonishing head I ever see. Oh, this is the boss dodged. There ain't no mistake about it. Let them fetch along their suspicions now if they want to. This will lay them out. When we got upstairs, everybody gathered around the table and the king he counted it and stacked it up three hundred dollars in a pile, 20 elegant little piles. Everybody looked hungry at it and lick their chops. Then they raked it into the bag again. And I see the king begin to swell himself up for another speech. He says, friends all my poor brother that lays yonder has done generous by them that's left behind in the veil of sores. He has done generous by these year poor little lambs that he loved and sheltered. And that's left fatherless and motherless. Yes, and we that knowed him knows that he would have done more generous by him if he hadn't been afeard a wounding his dear William and me. Now wouldn't he? There ain't no question about it in my mind. Well then what kind of brothers would it be that had stand in his way at such a time? And what kind, oh, uncles, would it be that robbed? Yes, rob, such poor sweet lambs as these at he loved at such a time. If I know William, and I think I do, he, well, I'll just ask him. He turns around and begins to make a lot of signs to the Duke with his hands. And the Duke, he looks at him stupid and leatherheaded a while. And then all of a sudden he seems to catch his meaning and jumps for the king goo gooing with all his might for joy and hugs him about 15 times before he lets up. Then the king says, I knowed it. I reckon that I'll convince anybody the way he feels about it. Hear Mary Jane, Susan, Joanna, take the money, take it all. It's the gift of him that lays yonder, cold, but joyful. Mary Jane, she went for him. Susan and the hairlip went for the Duke. And then such another hugging and kissing I never seen yet. And everybody crowded up with the tears in their eyes and most shook the hands off of them, frauds, saying all the time, you dear good souls, how lovely, how could you? Well then pretty soon all hands got to talking about the disease again and how good he was and what a loss he was and all that. And before long a big iron jawed man worked himself in there from outside and stood a listening and looking and not saying anything and nobody saying anything to him either because the king was talking and they was all busy listening. The king was saying in the middle of something he started in on they been particular friends all the deceased. That's why they're invited here this evening. But tomorrow we want all to come everybody for he respected everybody. He liked everybody. And so it's fitting that his funeral orgies should be public. And so he went a moaning on and on, liking to hear himself talk. And every little while he fetched in his funeral orgies again, till the Duke he couldn't stand it no more. So he writes on a little scrap of paper obsquities you old fool and folds it up and goes a goo gooing and reaching it over people's heads to him. The king he reads it and puts it in his pocket and says poor William afflicted as he is his heart's all right. Ask me to invite everybody to come to the funeral wants me to make them all welcome but he needed a worried it was just what I was at. Then he weaves along again perfectly calm and goes to dropping in his funeral orgies again every now and then just like he done before and when he done it the third time he says I say orgies not because it's the common term because it ain't obsequities being the common term but because orgies is the right term obsequities ain't used in England no more now it's gone out we say orgies now in England orgies is better because it means the thing you're after more exact it's a word that's made up out in the Greek orgo outside open abroad and the Hebrew G some to plant cover up hence enter so you'll see funeral orgies is an open or public funeral he was the worst I ever struck well the iron job man he laughed right in his face everybody was shocked everybody says white doctor and Abinir Shackleford says why Robinson hate you heard the news this is Harvey Wilkes the king he smiled eager and shoved out his flapper and says is it my poor brother's dear good friend and physician I keep your hands off me said the doctor you talk like an Englishman don't you it's the worst imitation I ever heard you Peter Wilkes's brother you're a fraud that's what you are well how they all took on they crowded around the doctor and tried to quiet him down and tried to explain to him and tell him how Harvey showed in 40 ways that he was Harvey and know everybody by name and the names of the very dogs and baked and begged him not to hurt Harvey's feelings and the poor girl's feelings and all that but it weren't no use he stormed right along and said any man that pretended to be an Englishman and couldn't imitate the lingo no better than what he did was a fraud and a liar the poor girls was hanging to the king and crying and all of a sudden the doctor ups and turns on them he says I was your father's friend and I'm your friend and I warn you as a friend and an honest one that wants to protect you and keep you out of harm and trouble to turn your backs on that scoundrel and have nothing to do with him the ignorant tramp with his idiotic Greek and Hebrew as he calls it he is the thinnest kind of an imposter has come here with a lot of empty names and facts which he picked up somewheres and you take them for proofs and are helped to fool yourselves by these foolish friends here who ought to know better Mary Jane Wilkes you know me for your friend and for your unselfish friend too now listen to me turn this pitiful rascal out I beg you to do it will you Mary Jane straighten herself up and my but she was handsome she says here is my answer she hove up the bag of money and put it in the king's hands and says take this six thousand dollars and invest for me and my sisters any way you want to and don't give us no receipt for it then she put her arm around the king on one side and Susan and the hair lip done the same on the other everybody clapped their hands and stomped on the floor like a perfect storm whilst the king held up his head and smiled proud the doctor says all right I wash my hands of the matter but I warn you all that a time's coming when you're going to feel sick whenever you think of this day and away he went all right doctor says the king kinder mocking him will try and get him to send for you which made them all laugh and they said it was a prime good hit end of chapter 25 recording by Linda Marie Nielsen Vancouver BC