CHAPTER XXIII
WELL, all day him and the king was hard at it,
rigging up a stage and a 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 thrillingest one that ever was; and so he
went on a-bragging about the tragedy, and about
Edmund Kean the Elder, which was to play the main
principal part in it; and at last when he'd got
everybody's expectations up high enough, he rolled
up the curtain, and the next minute the king come
a-prancing 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 haw-hawed 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
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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 obleeged 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 tragedians. But
a big, fine looking man jumps up on a bench and
shouts:
"Hold on! Just a word, gentlemen." They stopped 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
jedge 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
but how splendid that 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,
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and fetch her in and hide her about two mile below
town.
The third night the house was crammed again -- and
they warn't new-comers 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 smelt 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 he give
a fellow a quarter and told him to tend door for him
a minute, and then he started around for the stage
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 down stream, 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 up-town at all.
We never showed a light till we was about ten mile
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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 to -- they brought plenty
provisions."
Them rapscallions 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 s'prise you de way dem 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, dese kings o' ourn is reglar
rapscallions; dat's jist what dey is; dey's reglar
rapscallions."
"Well, that's what I'm a-saying; all kings is mostly
rapscallions, as fur as I can make out."
"Is dat so?"
"You read about them once -- you'll see. Look at
Henry the Eight; this 'n 's a Sunday-school
Superintendent to him. And look at Charles Second,
and Louis Fourteen, and Louis Fifteen, and James
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Second, and Edward Second, and Richard Third, and
forty more; besides all them Saxon heptarchies that
used to rip around so in old times and raise Cain.
My, you ought to seen old Henry the Eight when he
was in bloom. He was a blossom. He used to marry a
new wife every day, and chop off her head next
morning. And he would do it just as indifferent as
if he was ordering up eggs. 'Fetch up Nell Gwynn,'
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 Rosamun.' Fair Rosamun 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 Domesday Book -- which was a good name and
stated the case. You don't know kings, Jim, but I
know them; and this old rip of ourn 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
whacks 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 -- drownded him in a butt of
mamsey, like a cat. S'pose people left money laying
around where he was -- what did he do? He collared
it. S'pose he contracted to
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do a thing, and you paid him, and didn't set down
there and see that he done it -- what did he do? He
always done the other thing. S'pose 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 a had him along 'stead
of our kings he'd a fooled that town a heap worse
than ourn done. I don't say that ourn 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 dis one do smell so like de nation, Huck."
"Well, they all do, Jim. We can't help the way a
king smells; history don't tell no way."
"Now de duke, he's a tolerble 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 doan' hanker for no mo' un um,
Huck. Dese is all I kin stan'."
"It's the way I feel, too, 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 warn't real kings
and dukes? It wouldn't a 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
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my turn. He often done that. When I waked up just at
daybreak he was sitting there with his head down
betwixt 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
their'n. It don't seem natural, but I reckon it's
so. He was often moaning and mourning that way
nights, when he judged I was asleep, and saying,
"Po' little 'Lizabeth! po' little Johnny! it's
mighty hard; I spec' I ain't ever gwyne to see you
no mo', no mo'!" 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 dis time 'uz bekase I
hear sumpn over yonder on de bank like a whack, er a
slam, while ago, en it mine me er de time I treat my
little 'Lizabeth so ornery. She warn't on'y 'bout
fo' year ole, en she tuck de sk'yarlet fever, en had
a powful rough spell; but she got well, en one day
she was a-stannin' aroun', en I says to her, I says:
"'Shet de do'.'
"She never done it; jis' stood dah, kiner smilin' up
at me. It make me mad; en I says agin, mighty loud,
I says:
"'Doan' you hear me? Shet de do'!'
"She jis stood de same way, kiner smilin' up. I was
a-bilin'! I says:
"'I lay I make you mine!'
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"En wid dat I fetch' her a slap side de head dat
sont her a-sprawlin'. Den I went into de yuther
room, en 'uz gone 'bout ten minutes; en when I come
back dah was dat do' a-stannin' open yit, en dat
chile stannin' mos' right in it, a-lookin' down and
mournin', en de tears runnin' down. My, but I wuz
mad! I was a-gwyne for de chile, but jis' den -- it
was a do' dat open innerds -- jis' den, 'long come
de wind en slam it to, behine de chile, ker-blam! --
en my lan', de chile never move'! My breff mos' hop
outer me; en I feel so -- so -- I doan' know how I
feel. I crope out, all a-tremblin', en crope aroun'
en open de do' easy en slow, en poke my head in
behine de chile, sof' en still, en all uv a sudden I
says pow! jis' as loud as I could yell. She never
budge! Oh, Huck, I bust out a-cryin' en grab her up
in my arms, en say, 'Oh, de po' little thing! De
Lord God Amighty fogive po' ole Jim, kaze he never
gwyne to fogive hisself as long's he live!' Oh, she
was plumb deef en dumb, Huck, plumb deef en dumb --
en I'd ben a-treat'n her so!"
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