Two or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might say they swum
by, they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely. Here is the way we
put in the time. It was a monstrous big river down there--sometimes a
mile and a half wide; we run nights, and laid up and hid daytimes;
soon as night was most gone we stopped navigating and tied up--nearly
always in the dead water under a towhead; and then cut young
cottonwoods and willows, and hid the raft with them. Then we set out
the lines. Next we slid into the river and had a swim, so as to
freshen up and cool off; then we set down on the sandy bottom where
the water was about knee-deep, and watched the daylight come. Not a
sound anywheres--perfectly still--just like the whole world was
asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs a-cluttering, maybe. The first
thing to see, looking away over the water, was a kind of dull
line--that was the woods on t'other side; you couldn't make nothing
else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness spreading
around; then the river softened up away off, and warn't black any
more, but gray; you could see little dark spots drifting along ever so
far away--trading-scows, and such things; and long black
streaks--rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking; or
jumbled-up voices, it was so still, and sounds come so far; and by and
by you could see a streak on the water which you know by the look of
the streak that there's a snag there in a swift current which breaks
on it and makes that streak look that way; and you see the mist curl
up off of the water, and the east reddens up, and the river, and you
make out a log cabin in the edge of the woods, away on the bank on
t'other side of the river, being a wood-yard, likely, and piled by
them cheats so you can throw a dog through it anywheres; then the nice
breeze springs up, and comes fanning you from over there, so cool and
fresh and sweet to smell on account of the woods and the flowers; but
sometimes not that way, because they've left dead fish laying around,
gars and such, and they do get pretty rank; and next you've got the
full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and the song-birds just
going it!

A little smoke couldn't be noticed now, so we would take some fish off
of the lines and cook up a hot breakfast. And afterwards we would
watch the lonesomeness of the river, and kind of lazy along, and by
and by lazy off to sleep. Wake up by and by, and look to see what done
it, and maybe see a steamboat coughing along up-stream, so far off
towards the other side you couldn't tell nothing about her only
whether she was a stern-wheel or side-wheel; then for about an hour
there wouldn't be nothing to hear nor nothing to see--just solid
lonesomeness. Next you'd see a raft sliding by, away off yonder, and
maybe a galoot on it chopping, because they're most always doing it on
a raft; you'd see the ax flash and come down--you don't hear nothing;
you see that ax go up again, and by the time it's above the man's head
then you hear the _k'chunk!_--it had took all that time to come over
the water. So we would put in the day, lazying around, listening to
the stillness. Once there was a thick fog, and the rafts and things
that went by was beating tin pans so the steamboats wouldn't run over
them. A scow or a raft went by so close we could hear them talking and
cussing and laughing--heard them plain; but we couldn't see no sign of
them; it made you feel crawly; it was like spirits carrying on that
way in the air. Jim said he believed it was spirits; but I says:

"No; spirits wouldn't say, 'Dern the dern fog.'"

Soon as it was night out we shoved; when we got her out to about the
middle we let her alone, and let her float wherever the current wanted
her to; then we lit the pipes, and dangled our legs in the water, and
talked about all kinds of things--we was always naked, day and night,
whenever the mosquitoes would let us--the new clothes Buck's folks
made for me was too good to be comfortable, and besides I didn't go
much on clothes, nohow.

Sometimes we'd have that whole river all to ourselves for the longest
time. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the water; and
maybe a spark--which was a candle in a cabin window; and sometimes on
the water you could see a spark or two--on a raft or a scow, you know;
and maybe you could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from one of
them crafts. It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there,
all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up
at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just
happened. Jim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I
judged it would have took too long to _make_ so many. Jim said the
moon could 'a' _laid_ them; well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I
didn't say nothing against it, because I've seen a frog lay most as
many, so of course it could be done. We used to watch the stars that
fell, too, and see them streak down. Jim allowed they'd got spoiled
and was hove out of the nest.

Once or twice of a night we would see a steamboat slipping along in
the dark, and now and then she would belch a whole world of sparks up
out of her chimbleys, and they would rain down in the river and look
awful pretty; then she would turn a corner and her lights would wink
out and her powwow shut off and leave the river still again; and by
and by her waves would get to us, a long time after she was gone, and
joggle the raft a bit, and after that you wouldn't hear nothing for
you couldn't tell how long, except maybe frogs or something.

After midnight the people on shore went to bed, and then for two or
three hours the shores was black--no more sparks in the cabin windows.
These sparks was our clock--the first one that showed again meant
morning was coming, so we hunted a place to hide and tie up right
away.

One morning about daybreak I found a canoe and crossed over a chute to
the main shore--it was only two hundred yards--and paddled about a
mile up a crick amongst the cypress woods, to see if I couldn't get
some berries. Just as I was passing a place where a kind of a cowpath
crossed the crick, here comes a couple of men tearing up the path as
tight as they could foot it. I thought I was a goner, for whenever
anybody was after anybody I judged it was _me_--or maybe Jim. I was
about to dig out from there in a hurry, but they was pretty close to
me then, and sung out and begged me to save their lives--said they
hadn't been doing nothing, and was being chased for it--said there was
men and dogs a-coming. They wanted to jump right in, but I says:

"Don't you do it. I don't hear the dogs and horses yet; you've got
time to crowd through the brush and get up the crick a little ways;
then you take to the water and wade down to me and get in--that 'll
throw the dogs off the scent."

They done it, and soon as they was aboard I lit out for our towhead,
and in about five or ten minutes we heard the dogs and the men away
off, shouting. We heard them come along towards the crick, but
couldn't see them; they seemed to stop and fool around awhile; then,
as we got further and further away all the time, we couldn't hardly
hear them at all; by the time we had left a mile of woods behind us
and struck the river, everything was quiet, and we paddled over to the
towhead and hid in the cottonwoods and was safe.

One of these fellows was about seventy or upwards, and had a bald head
and very gray whiskers. He had an old battered-up slouch hat on, and a
greasy blue woolen shirt, and ragged old blue jeans britches stuffed
into his boot-tops, and home-knit galluses--no, he only had one. He
had an old long-tailed blue jeans coat with slick brass buttons flung
over his arm, and both of them had big, fat, ratty-looking
carpet-bags.

The other fellow was about thirty, and dressed about as ornery. After
breakfast we all laid off and talked, and the first thing that come
out was that these chaps didn't know one another.

"What got you into trouble?" says the baldhead to t'other chap.

"Well, I'd been selling an article to take the tartar off the
teeth--and it does take it off, too, and generly the enamel along with
it--but I stayed about one night longer than I ought to, and was just
in the act of sliding out when I ran across you on the trail this side
of town, and you told me they were coming, and begged me to help you
to get off. So I told you I was expecting trouble myself, and would
scatter out _with_ you. That's the whole yarn--what's yourn?"

"Well, I'd ben a-runnin' a little temperance revival thar 'bout a
week, and was the pet of the women folks, big and little, for I was
makin' it mighty warm for the rummies, I _tell_ you, and takin' as
much as five or six dollars a night--ten cents a head, children and
niggers free--and business a-growin' all the time, when somehow or
another a little report got around last night that I had a way of
puttin' in my time with a private jug on the sly. A nigger rousted me
out this mornin', and told me the people was getherin' on the quiet
with their dogs and horses, and they'd be along pretty soon and give
me 'bout half an hour's start, and then run me down if they could; and
if they got me they'd tar and feather me and ride me on a rail, sure.
I didn't wait for no breakfast--I warn't hungry."

"Old man," said the young one, "I reckon we might double-team it
together; what do you think?"

"I ain't undisposed. What's your line--mainly?"

"Jour printer by trade; do a little in patent medicines;
theater-actor--tragedy, you know; take a turn to mesmerism and
phrenology when there's a chance; teach singing-geography school for a
change; sling a lecture sometimes--oh, I do lots of things--most
anything that comes handy, so it ain't work. What's your lay?"

"I've done considerble in the doctoring way in my time. Layin' on o'
hands is my best holt--for cancer and paralysis, and sich things; and
I k'n tell a fortune pretty good when I've got somebody along to find
out the facts for me. Preachin's my line, too, and workin'
camp-meetin's, and missionaryin' around."

Nobody never said anything for a while; then the young man hove a sigh
and says:

"Alas!"

"What 're you alassin' about?" says the baldhead.

"To think I should have lived to be leading such a life, and be
degraded down into such company." And he begun to wipe the corner of
his eye with a rag.

"Dern your skin, ain't the company good enough for you?" says the
baldhead, pretty pert and uppish.

"Yes, it _is_ good enough for me; it's as good as I deserve; for who
fetched me so low when I was so high? I did myself. I don't blame
_you_, gentlemen--far from it; I don't blame anybody. I deserve it
all. Let the cold world do its worst; one thing I know--there's a
grave somewhere for me. The world may go on just as it's always done,
and take everything from me--loved ones, property, everything; but it
can't take that. Some day I'll lie down in it and forget it all, and
my poor broken heart will be at rest." He went on a-wiping.

"Drot your pore broken heart," says the baldhead; "what are you
heaving your pore broken heart at _us_ f'r? _We_ hain't done nothing."

"No, I know you haven't. I ain't blaming you, gentlemen. I
brought myself down--yes, I did it myself. It's right I should
suffer--perfectly right--I don't make any moan."

"Brought you down from whar? Whar was you brought down from?"

"Ah, you would not believe me; the world never believes--let it
pass--'tis no matter. The secret of my birth--"

"The secret of your birth! Do you mean to say--"

"Gentlemen," says the young man, very solemn, "I will reveal it to
you, for I feel I may have confidence in you. By rights I am a duke!"

Jim's eyes bugged out when he heard that; and I reckon mine did, too.
Then the baldhead says: "No! you can't mean it?"

"Yes. My great-grandfather, eldest son of the Duke of Bridgewater,
fled to this country about the end of the last century, to breathe the
pure air of freedom; married here, and died, leaving a son, his own
father dying about the same time. The second son of the late duke
seized the titles and estates--the infant real duke was ignored. I am
the lineal descendant of that infant--I am the rightful Duke of
Bridgewater; and here am I, forlorn, torn from my high estate, hunted
of men, despised by the cold world, ragged, worn, heartbroken, and
degraded to the companionship of felons on a raft!"

Jim pitied him ever so much, and so did I. We tried to comfort him,
but he said it warn't much use, he couldn't be much comforted; said if
we was a mind to acknowledge him, that would do him more good than
most anything else; so we said we would, if he would tell us how. He
said we ought to bow when we spoke to him, and say "Your Grace," or
"My Lord," or "Your Lordship"--and he wouldn't mind it if we called
him plain "Bridgewater," which, he said, was a title anyway, and not a
name; and one of us ought to wait on him at dinner, and do any little
thing for him he wanted done.

Well, that was all easy, so we done it. All through dinner Jim stood
around and waited on him, and says, "Will yo' Grace have some o' dis
or some o' dat?" and so on, and a body could see it was mighty
pleasing to him.

But the old man got pretty silent by and by--didn't have much to say,
and didn't look pretty comfortable over all that petting that was
going on around that duke. He seemed to have something on his mind.
So, along in the afternoon, he says:

"Looky here, Bilgewater," he says, "I'm nation sorry for you, but you
ain't the only person that's had troubles like that."

"No?"

"No, you ain't. You ain't the only person that's ben snaked down
wrongfully out'n a high place."

"Alas!"

"No, you ain't the only person that's had a secret of his birth." And,
by jings, _he_ begins to cry.

"Hold!  What do you mean?"

"Bilgewater, kin I trust you?" says the old man, still sort of
sobbing.

"To the bitter death!" He took the old man by the hand and squeezed
it, and says, "That secret of your being: speak!"

"Bilgewater, I am the late Dauphin!"

You bet you, Jim and me stared this time. Then the duke says:

"You are what?"

"Yes, my friend, it is too true--your eyes is lookin' at this very
moment on the pore disappeared Dauphin, Looy the Seventeen, son of
Looy the Sixteen and Marry Antonette."

"You! At your age! No! You mean you're the late Charlemagne; you must
be six or seven hundred years old, at the very least."

"Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done it; trouble has
brung these gray hairs and this premature balditude. Yes, gentlemen,
you see before you, in blue jeans and misery, the wanderin', exiled,
trampled-on, and sufferin' rightful King of France."

Well, he cried and took on so that me and Jim didn't know hardly what
to do, we was so sorry--and so glad and proud we'd got him with us,
too. So we set in, like we done before with the duke, and tried to
comfort _him._ But he said it warn't no use, nothing but to be dead
and done with it all could do him any good; though he said it often
made him feel easier and better for a while if people treated him
according to his rights, and got down on one knee to speak to him, and
always called him "Your Majesty," and waited on him first at meals,
and didn't set down in his presence till he asked them. So Jim and me
set to majestying him, and doing this and that and t'other for him,
and standing up till he told us we might set down. This done him heaps
of good, and so he got cheerful and comfortable. But the duke kind of
soured on him, and didn't look a bit satisfied with the way things was
going; still, the king acted real friendly towards him, and said the
duke's great-grandfather and all the other Dukes of Bilgewater was a
good deal thought of by _his_ father, and was allowed to come to the
palace considerable; but the duke stayed huffy a good while, till by
and by the king says:

"Like as not we got to be together a blamed long time on this h-yer
raft, Bilgewater, and so what's the use o' your bein' sour? It 'll
only make things oncomfortable. It ain't my fault I warn't born a
duke, it ain't your fault you warn't born a king--so what's the use to
worry? Make the best o' things the way you find 'em, says I--that's my
motto. This ain't no bad thing that we've struck here--plenty grub and
an easy life--come, give us your hand, duke, and le's all be friends."

The duke done it, and Jim and me was pretty glad to see it. It took
away all the uncomfortableness and we felt mighty good over it,
because it would 'a' been a miserable business to have any
unfriendliness on the raft; for what you want, above all things, on a
raft, is for everybody to be satisfied, and feel right and kind
towards the others.

It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn't no
kings nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds. But I
never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it's the best
way; then you don't have no quarrels, and don't get into no trouble.
If they wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn't no
objections, 'long as it would keep peace in the family; and it warn't
no use to tell Jim, so I didn't tell him. If I never learnt nothing
else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with his kind
of people is to let them have their own way.

Huck and Jim continue down the river. On one of his solo expeditions in the canoe, Huck comes upon two men on shore fleeing some trouble and begging to be let onto the raft. Huck takes them a mile downstream to safety. One man is about seventy, bald, with whiskers, and the other about thirty. Both men's clothes are badly tattered. The men do not know each other but are in similar predicaments. The younger man used to sell a paste that was meant to remove tartar from teeth but that took off much of the enamel with it. He fled to avoid the locals' ire. The older man used to run a temperance revival meeting but had to flee after word got out that he drank. Having heard each other's stories, the two men, both professional con artists, decide to team up. The younger man declares himself an impoverished English duke and gets Huck and Jim to wait on him and treat him like royalty. The old man then reveals his true identity as the dauphin, the long lost son of King Louis XVI of France. Huck and Jim then wait on the men and call them "Duke" and "Your Majesty," respectively. Huck quickly realizes that the two men are liars, but to prevent "quarrels," he does not let on that he knows


They asked us considerable many questions; wanted to know what we
covered up the raft that way for, and laid by in the daytime instead
of running--was Jim a runaway nigger? Says I:

"Goodness sakes! would a runaway nigger run _south?_"

No, they allowed he wouldn't. I had to account for things some way, so
I says:

"My folks was living in Pike County, in Missouri, where I was born,
and they all died off but me and pa and my brother Ike. Pa, he 'lowed
he'd break up and go down and live with Uncle Ben, who's got a little
one-horse place on the river forty-four mile below Orleans. Pa was
pretty poor, and had some debts; so when he'd squared up there warn't
nothing left but sixteen dollars and our nigger, Jim. That warn't
enough to take us fourteen hundred mile, deck passage nor no other
way. Well, when the river rose pa had a streak of luck one day; he
ketched this piece of a raft; so we reckoned we'd go down to Orleans
on it. Pa's luck didn't hold out; a steamboat run over the forrard
corner of the raft one night, and we all went overboard and dove under
the wheel; Jim and me come up all right, but pa was drunk, and Ike was
only four years old, so they never come up no more. Well, for the next
day or two we had considerable trouble, because people was always
coming out in skiffs and trying to take Jim away from me, saying they
believed he was a runaway nigger. We don't run daytimes no more now;
nights they don't bother us."

The duke says:

"Leave me alone to cipher out a way so we can run in the daytime if we
want to. I'll think the thing over--I'll invent a plan that 'll fix
it. We'll let it alone for to-day, because of course we don't want to
go by that town yonder in daylight--it mightn't be healthy."

Towards night it begun to darken up and look like rain; the
heat-lightning was squirting around low down in the sky, and the
leaves was beginning to shiver--it was going to be pretty ugly, it was
easy to see that. So the duke and the king went to overhauling our
wigwam, to see what the beds was like. My bed was a straw tick--better
than Jim's, which was a corn-shuck tick; there's always cobs around
about in a shuck tick, and they poke into you and hurt; and when you
roll over the dry shucks sound like you was rolling over in a pile of
dead leaves; it makes such a rustling that you wake up. Well, the duke
allowed he would take my bed; but the king allowed he wouldn't. He
says:

"I should 'a' reckoned the difference in rank would a sejested to you
that a corn-shuck bed warn't just fitten for me to sleep on. Your
Grace 'll take the shuck bed yourself."

Jim and me was in a sweat again for a minute, being afraid there was
going to be some more trouble amongst them; so we was pretty glad when
the duke says:

"'Tis my fate to be always ground into the mire under the iron heel of
oppression. Misfortune has broken my once haughty spirit; I yield, I
submit; 'tis my fate. I am alone in the world--let me suffer; I can
bear it."

We got away as soon as it was good and dark. The king told us to stand
well out towards the middle of the river, and not show a light till we
got a long ways below the town. We come in sight of the little bunch
of lights by and by--that was the town, you know--and slid by, about a
half a mile out, all right. When we was three-quarters of a mile below
we hoisted up our signal lantern; and about ten o'clock it come on to
rain and blow and thunder and lighten like everything; so the king
told us to both stay on watch till the weather got better; then him
and the duke crawled into the wigwam and turned in for the night. It
was my watch below till twelve, but I wouldn't 'a' turned in anyway if
I'd had a bed, because a body don't see such a storm as that every day
in the week, not by a long sight. My souls, how the wind did scream
along! And every second or two there'd come a glare that lit up the
white-caps for a half a mile around, and you'd see the islands looking
dusty through the rain, and the trees thrashing around in the wind;
then comes a _h-whack!_--bum! bum! bumble-umble-um-bum-bum-bum-bum--and
the thunder would go rumbling and grumbling away, and quit--and then
_rip_ comes another flash and another sock-dolager. The waves most
washed me off the raft sometimes, but I hadn't any clothes on, and
didn't mind. We didn't have no trouble about snags; the lightning
was glaring and flittering around so constant that we could see them
plenty soon enough to throw her head this way or that and miss them.

I had the middle watch, you know, but I was pretty sleepy by that
time, so Jim he said he would stand the first half of it for me; he
was always mighty good that way, Jim was. I crawled into the wigwam,
but the king and the duke had their legs sprawled around so there
warn't no show for me; so I laid outside--I didn't mind the rain,
because it was warm, and the waves warn't running so high now. About
two they come up again, though, and Jim was going to call me; but he
changed his mind, because he reckoned they warn't high enough yet to
do any harm; but he was mistaken about that, for pretty soon all of a
sudden along comes a regular ripper and washed me overboard. It most
killed Jim a-laughing. He was the easiest nigger to laugh that ever
was, anyway.

I took the watch, and Jim he laid down and snored away; and by and by
the storm let up for good and all; and the first cabin-light that
showed I rousted him out, and we slid the raft into hiding-quarters
for the day.

The king got out an old ratty deck of cards after breakfast, and him
and the duke played seven-up awhile, five cents a game. Then they got
tired of it, and allowed they would "lay out a campaign," as they
called it. The duke went down into his carpet-bag, and fetched up a
lot of little printed bills and read them out loud. One bill said,
"The celebrated Dr. Armand de Montalban, of Paris," would "lecture on
the Science of Phrenology" at such and such a place, on the blank day
of blank, at ten cents admission, and "furnish charts of character at
twenty-five cents apiece." The duke said that was _him._ In another
bill he was the "world-renowned Shakespearian tragedian, Garrick the
Younger, of Drury Lane, London." In other bills he had a lot of other
names and done other wonderful things, like finding water and gold
with a "divining-rod," "dissipating witch spells," and so on. By and
by he says:

"But the histrionic muse is the darling. Have you ever trod the
boards, Royalty?"

"No," says the king.

"You shall, then, before you're three days older, Fallen Grandeur,"
says the duke. "The first good town we come to we'll hire a hall and
do the swordfight in 'Richard III.' and the balcony scene in 'Romeo
and Juliet.' How does that strike you?"

"I'm in, up to the hub, for anything that will pay, Bilgewater; but,
you see, I don't know nothing about play-actin', and hain't ever seen
much of it. I was too small when pap used to have 'em at the palace.
Do you reckon you can learn me?"

"Easy!"

"All right. I'm jist a-freezin' for something fresh, anyway. Le's
commence right away."

So the duke he told him all about who Romeo was and who Juliet was,
and said he was used to being Romeo, so the king could be Juliet.

"But if Juliet's such a young gal, duke, my peeled head and my white
whiskers is goin' to look oncommon odd on her, maybe."

"No, don't you worry; these country jakes won't ever think of that.
Besides, you know, you'll be in costume, and that makes all the
difference in the world; Juliet's in a balcony, enjoying the moonlight
before she goes to bed, and she's got on her nightgown and her ruffled
nightcap. Here are the costumes for the parts."

He got out two or three curtain-calico suits, which he said was
meedyevil armor for Richard III. and t'other chap, and a long white
cotton nightshirt and a ruffled nightcap to match. The king was
satisfied; so the duke got out his book and read the parts over in the
most splendid spread-eagle way, prancing around and acting at the same
time, to show how it had got to be done; then he give the book to the
king and told him to get his part by heart.

There was a little one-horse town about three mile down the bend, and
after dinner the duke said he had ciphered out his idea about how to
run in daylight without it being dangersome for Jim; so he allowed he
would go down to the town and fix that thing. The king allowed he
would go, too, and see if he couldn't strike something. We was out of
coffee, so Jim said I better go along with them in the canoe and get
some.

When we got there there warn't nobody stirring; streets empty, and
perfectly dead and still, like Sunday. We found a sick nigger sunning
himself in a back yard, and he said everybody that warn't too young or
too sick or too old was gone to camp-meeting, about two mile back in
the woods. The king got the directions, and allowed he'd go and work
that camp-meeting for all it was worth, and I might go, too.

The duke said what he was after was a printing-office. We found it; a
little bit of a concern, up over a carpenter-shop--carpenters and
printers all gone to the meeting, and no doors locked. It was a dirty,
littered-up place, and had ink-marks, and handbills with pictures of
horses and runaway niggers on them, all over the walls. The duke shed
his coat and said he was all right now. So me and the king lit out for
the camp-meeting.

We got there in about a half an hour fairly dripping, for it was a
most awful hot day. There was as much as a thousand people there from
twenty mile around. The woods was full of teams and wagons, hitched
everywheres, feeding out of the wagon-troughs and stomping to keep off
the flies. There was sheds made out of poles and roofed over with
branches, where they had lemonade and gingerbread to sell, and piles
of watermelons and green corn and such-like truck.

The preaching was going on under the same kinds of sheds, only they
was bigger and held crowds of people. The benches was made out of
outside slabs of logs, with holes bored in the round side to drive
sticks into for legs. They didn't have no backs. The preachers had
high platforms to stand on at one end of the sheds. The women had on
sun-bonnets; and some had linsey-woolsey frocks, some gingham ones,
and a few of the young ones had on calico. Some of the young men was
barefooted, and some of the children didn't have on any clothes but
just a tow-linen shirt. Some of the old women was knitting, and some
of the young folks was courting on the sly.

The first shed we come to the preacher was lining out a hymn. He lined
out two lines, everybody sung it, and it was kind of grand to hear it,
there was so many of them and they done it in such a rousing way; then
he lined out two more for them to sing--and so on. The people woke up
more and more, and sung louder and louder; and towards the end some
begun to groan, and some begun to shout. Then the preacher begun to
preach, and begun in earnest, too; and went weaving first to one side
of the platform and then the other, and then a-leaning down over the
front of it, with his arms and his body going all the time, and
shouting his words out with all his might; and every now and then he
would hold up his Bible and spread it open, and kind of pass it around
this way and that, shouting, "It's the brazen serpent in the
wilderness! Look upon it and live!" And people would shout out,
"Glory!--A-a-_men_!" And so he went on, and the people groaning and
crying and saying amen:

"Oh, come to the mourners' bench! come, black with sin! (_amen!_)
come, sick and sore! (_amen!_) come, lame and halt and blind!
(_amen!_) come, pore and needy, sunk in shame! (_a-a-men!_) come, all
that's worn and soiled and suffering!--come with a broken spirit! come
with a contrite heart! come in your rags and sin and dirt! the waters
that cleanse is free, the door of heaven stands open--oh, enter in and
be at rest!" (_a-a-men! glory, glory hallelujah!_)

And so on. You couldn't make out what the preacher said any more, on
account of the shouting and crying. Folks got up everywheres in the
crowd, and worked their way just by main strength to the mourners'
bench, with the tears running down their faces; and when all the
mourners had got up there to the front benches in a crowd, they sung
and shouted and flung themselves down on the straw, just crazy and
wild.

Well, the first I knowed the king got a-going, and you could hear him
over everybody; and next he went a-charging up onto the platform, and
the preacher he begged him to speak to the people, and he done it. He
told them he was a pirate--been a pirate for thirty years out in the
Indian Ocean--and his crew was thinned out considerable last spring in
a fight, and he was home now to take out some fresh men, and thanks to
goodness he'd been robbed last night and put ashore off of a steamboat
without a cent, and he was glad of it; it was the blessedest thing
that ever happened to him, because he was a changed man now, and happy
for the first time in his life; and, poor as he was, he was going to
start right off and work his way back to the Indian Ocean, and put in
the rest of his life trying to turn the pirates into the true path;
for he could do it better than anybody else, being acquainted with all
pirate crews in that ocean; and though it would take him a long time
to get there without money, he would get there anyway, and every time
he convinced a pirate he would say to him, "Don't you thank me, don't
you give me no credit; it all belongs to them dear people in Pokeville
camp-meeting, natural brothers and benefactors of the race, and that
dear preacher there, the truest friend a pirate ever had!"

And then he busted into tears, and so did everybody. Then somebody
sings out, "Take up a collection for him, take up a collection!" Well,
a half a dozen made a jump to do it, but somebody sings out, "Let
_him_ pass the hat around!" Then everybody said it, the preacher too.

So the king went all through the crowd with his hat, swabbing his
eyes, and blessing the people and praising them and thanking them for
being so good to the poor pirates away off there; and every little
while the prettiest kind of girls, with the tears running down their
cheeks, would up and ask him would he let them kiss him for to
remember him by; and he always done it; and some of them he hugged and
kissed as many as five or six times--and he was invited to stay a
week; and everybody wanted him to live in their houses, and said
they'd think it was an honor; but he said as this was the last day of
the camp-meeting he couldn't do no good, and besides he was in a sweat
to get to the Indian Ocean right off and go to work on the pirates.

When we got back to the raft and he come to count up he found he had
collected eighty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents. And then he had
fetched away a three-gallon jug of whisky, too, that he found under a
wagon when he was starting home through the woods. The king said, take
it all around, it laid over any day he'd ever put in in the
missionarying line. He said it warn't no use talking, heathens don't
amount to shucks alongside of pirates to work a camp-meeting with.

The duke was thinking _he'd_ been doing pretty well till the king
come to show up, but after that he didn't think so so much. He
had set up and printed off two little jobs for farmers in that
printing-office--horse bills--and took the money, four dollars. And he
had got in ten dollars' worth of advertisements for the paper, which
he said he would put in for four dollars if they would pay in
advance--so they done it. The price of the paper was two dollars a
year, but he took in three subscriptions for half a dollar apiece on
condition of them paying him in advance; they were going to pay in
cordwood and onions as usual, but he said he had just bought the
concern and knocked down the price as low as he could afford it, and
was going to run it for cash. He set up a little piece of poetry,
which he made, himself, out of his own head--three verses--kind of
sweet and saddish--the name of it was, "Yes, crush, cold world, this
breaking heart"--and he left that all set up and ready to print in the
paper, and didn't charge nothing for it. Well, he took in nine dollars
and a half, and said he'd done a pretty square day's work for it.

Then he showed us another little job he'd printed and hadn't charged
for, because it was for us. It had a picture of a runaway nigger with
a bundle on a stick over his shoulder, and "$200 reward" under it. The
reading was all about Jim and just described him to a dot. It said he
run away from St. Jacques's plantation, forty mile below New Orleans,
last winter, and likely went north, and whoever would catch him and
send him back he could have the reward and expenses.

"Now," says the duke, "after to-night we can run in the daytime if we
want to. Whenever we see anybody coming we can tie Jim hand and foot
with a rope, and lay him in the wigwam and show this handbill and say
we captured him up the river, and were too poor to travel on a
steamboat, so we got this little raft on credit from our friends and
are going down to get the reward. Handcuffs and chains would look
still better on Jim, but it wouldn't go well with the story of us
being so poor. Too much like jewelry. Ropes are the correct thing--we
must preserve the unities, as we say on the boards."

We all said the duke was pretty smart, and there couldn't be no
trouble about running daytimes. We judged we could make miles enough
that night to get out of the reach of the powwow we reckoned the
duke's work in the printing-office was going to make in that little
town; then we could boom right along if we wanted to.

We laid low and kept still, and never shoved out till nearly ten
o'clock; then we slid by, pretty wide away from the town, and didn't
hoist our lantern till we was clear out of sight of it.

When Jim called me to take the watch at four in the morning, he says:

"Huck, does you reck'n we gwyne to run acrost any mo' kings on dis
trip?"

"No," I says, "I reckon not."

"Well," says he, "dat's all right, den. I doan' mine one er two kings,
but dat's enough. Dis one's powerful drunk, en de duke ain' much
better."

I found Jim had been trying to get him to talk French, so he could
hear what it was like; but he said he had been in this country so
long, and had so much trouble, he'd forgot it.

The duke and the dauphin ask whether Jim is a runaway slave. Huck makes up a story about how he was orphaned and tells them that he and Jim have been forced to travel at night since so many people stopped his boat to ask whether Jim was a runaway. That night, the duke and the dauphin take Huck's and Jim's beds while Huck and Jim stand watch against a storm. The next morning, the duke gets the dauphin to agree to put on a performance of Shakespeare in the next town they pass. They reach the town and find that everyone in the town has left for a religious revival meeting in the woods, a lively affair with several thousand people singing and shouting. The dauphin gets up and tells the crowd that he is a former pirate, now reformed by the revival meeting, who will return to the Indian Ocean as a missionary. The crowd joyfully takes up a collection, netting the dauphin more than eighty dollars and many kisses from pretty young women. Meanwhile, the duke takes over the deserted print office in town and earns nearly ten dollars selling print jobs, subscriptions, and advertisements in the local newspaper. The duke also prints up a "handbill," or leaflet, offering a reward for Jim's capture, which will allow them to travel freely by day and tell anyone who inquires that Jim is their captive. Meanwhile, Jim has been innocently trying to get the dauphin to speak French, but the supposed heir to the French throne claims that he has forgotten the language

Although these chapters involving the duke and the dauphin appear purely comic on the surface, a dark commentary undercuts the comedy in virtually every episode. On the surface, the duke and the dauphin seem to be just two bumbling con artists, but they present an immediate threat to Huck and Jim. The two men constantly and cruelly toy with Jim's precarious status as a runaway slave and even use this fact to their own advantage when they print the fake leaflet advertising a reward for Jim's capture. Moreover, the fact that the duke and the dauphin run their first scam at a sacred event--a religious meeting--demonstrates their incredible malice. At the same time, however, it also suggests that the religious revival meeting may be as much of a scam as any of the "royal" pair's shenanigans. Continuing the pattern that we have seen throughout Huckleberry Finn, nearly everyone Huck and Jim encounter on the river is an unsavory character or a fake in one way or another. Sherburn's murder of the drunk and the subsequent mob scene continue this vein of simultaneous absurdity and seriousness in the novel and contribute to the sense of moral confusion in the town. Although Sherburn's shooting of the drunk is cold-blooded, his speech to the angry mob is among the most profound meditations on human nature in Huckleberry Finn. Sherburn's criticisms of the cowardice and despicable behavior of his fellow citizens are accurate, and his eloquence is impressive. Furthermore, much of what he has to say about cowardice applies directly to the townspeople's deplorable behavior, which has put Huck and Jim in peril in the first place. All the while, however, we are aware that this thoughtful speech comes from the mouth of a man who has just shot a defenseless drunk. Like Huck, we are confused and disoriented. Rather than provide some relief from this world of malice and chaos, Huck's leisurely trip to the circus only complicates matters further. Coming between the religious revival and the con men's performance, the circus illustrates just how fine the line is between spiritually enriching experience, legitimate entertainment, and downright fraud. Huck's concern for the seemingly drunk horseman is an elegantly constructed ending to this set of chapters. In a world like the one Twain depicts in the novel, one can no longer distinguish between reality and fakery, doom and deliverance.


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'd 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 lit his pipe,
and went to getting his "Romeo and Juliet" by heart. When he had got
it pretty good him and the duke begun to practise 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 out
_Romeo!_ that way, like a bull--you must say it soft and sick and
languishy, so--R-o-o-meo! that is the idea; for Juliet's a dear sweet
mere child of a girl, you know, and she doesn't bray like a jackass."

Well, next they got out a couple of long swords that the duke made out
of oak laths, and begun to practise 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 the king 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, Capet, 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 encores with, anyway."

"What's onkores, Bilgewater?"

The duke told him, and then says:

"I'll answer by doing the Highland fling or the sailor's hornpipe; and
you--well, let me see--oh, I've got it--you can do Hamlet's
soliloquy."

"Hamlet's which?"

"Hamlet's soliloquy, you know; the most celebrated thing in
Shakespeare. Ah, it's 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 vaults."

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 away 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 bare bodkin
    That makes calamity of so long life;
    For who would fardels bear, till Birnam Wood do come to
        Dunsinane,
    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 couldst;
    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 quietus which his pangs might take,
    In the dead waste and middle of the night, when churchyards
        yawn
    In customary suits of solemn black,
    But that the undiscovered country from whose bourne no
        traveler returns,
    Breathes forth contagion on the world,
    And thus the native hue of resolution, like the poor cat i' the
        adage,
    Is sicklied o'er 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:
    Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws,
    But get thee to a nunnery--go!

Well, the old man he liked that speech, and he mighty 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 rair 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 warn'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 Arkansaw,
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 crick
which was shut 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 shackly wagons, and on horses. The circus would leave
before night, so our show would have a pretty good chance. The duke he
hired the court-house, and we went around and stuck up our bills. They
read like this:

   Shaksperean Revival ! ! !
   Wonderful Attraction!
   For One Night Only!
   The world renowned tragedians,
   David Garrick the younger, of Drury Lane Theatre, London,
      and
   Edmund Kean the elder, of the Royal Haymarket Theatre,
   Whitechapel, Pudding Lane, Piccadilly, London, and the
   Royal Continental Theatres, in their sublime
   Shaksperean Spectacle entitled
   The Balcony Scene
      in
   Romeo and Juliet ! ! !
   Romeo...................Mr. Garrick
   Juliet..................Mr. Kean
   Assisted by the whole strength of the company!
   New costumes, new scenery, new appointments!
      Also:
   The thrilling, masterly, and blood-curdling
   Broad-sword conflict
   In Richard III. ! ! !
   Richard III.............Mr. Garrick
   Richmond................Mr. Kean
      Also:
   (by special request)
   Hamlet's Immortal Soliloquy ! !
   By the Illustrious Kean!
   Done by him 300 consecutive nights in Paris!
   For One Night Only,
   On account of imperative European engagements!
   Admission 25 cents; children and servants, 10 cents.

Then we went loafing around town. The stores and houses was most all
old, shackly, 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 jimpson-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 generly have but one hinge--a leather one. Some of
the fences had been whitewashed some time or another, but the duke
said it was in Columbus's time, like enough. There was generly 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-goods boxes under the awnings, and
loafers roosting on them all day long, whittling them with their
Barlow knives; and chawing tobacco, and gaping and yawning and
stretching--a mighty ornery lot. They generly 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 drawly, 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 lend a chaw of tobacco or scratch. What a body
was hearing amongst them all the time was:

"Gimme a chaw 'v tobacker, Hank."

"Cain't; I hain't got but one chaw left. Ask 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 a cent in the world, nor
a chaw of tobacco of their own. They get all their chawing by
borrowing; they say to a fellow, "I wisht you'd len' me a chaw, Jack,
I jist this minute give 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 chaws you've awready borry'd off'n
me, Lafe Buckner, then I'll loan you one or two ton of it, and won't
charge you no back intrust, nuther."

"Well, I _did_ pay you back some of it wunst."

"Yes, you did--'bout six chaws. You borry'd store tobacker 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 generly 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, gimme the _chaw_, and you take the _plug_."

[Illustration:"'GIMME A CHAW'"]

All the streets and lanes was just mud; they warn'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 everywheres.  You'd see a muddy sow and a litter of
pigs come lazying along the street and whollop herself right down in
the way, where folks had to walk around her, and she'd stretch 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! _so_ boy! sick him, Tige!" and away the sow
would go, squealing most horrible, with a dog or two swinging to each
ear, and three or four dozen more a-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 was sticking out over the bank,
and they was 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 dangersome, 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 whisky-drinking going on,
and I seen 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 looked glad; I reckoned they was used to having fun
out of Boggs. One of them says:

"Wonder who he's a-gwyne to chaw up this time. If he'd a-chawed up all
the men he's ben a-gwyne to chaw up in the last twenty year he'd have
considerable ruputation now."

Another one says, "I wisht old Boggs 'd threaten me, 'cuz then I'd
know I warn't gwyne to die for a thousan' year."

Boggs comes a-tearing along on his horse, whooping and yelling like an
Injun, and singing out:

"Cler the track, thar. I'm on the waw-path, and the price uv coffins
is a-gwyne to raise."

He was drunk, and weaving about in his saddle; he was over fifty year
old, and 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, "Meat first, and spoon vittles to top off on."

He see me, and rode up and says:

"Whar'd you come f'm, boy? You prepared to die?"

Then he rode on. I was scared, but a man says:

"He don't mean nothing; he's always a-carryin' on like that when he's
drunk. He's the best-naturedest old fool in Arkansaw--never hurt
nobody, drunk nor sober."

Boggs rode 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 houn' I'm after, and I'm a-gwyne 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 fifty-five--and he was a
heap the best-dressed man in that town, too--steps out of the store,
and the crowd drops back on each side to let him come. He says to
Boggs, mighty ca'm 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 warn't no more laughing. Boggs rode off
blackguarding 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 fifteen 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 a-raging down the street again, with his gray hair a-flying.
Everybody that could get a chance at him tried their best to coax him
off of his horse so 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 a ways and stopped.
In about five or ten minutes here comes Boggs again, but not on his
horse. He was a-reeling across the street towards me, bareheaded, with
a friend on both sides of him a-holt of his arms and hurrying him
along. He was quiet, and looked uneasy; and he warn'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 come down slow and
steady to a level--both barrels cocked. Boggs throws up both of his
hands and says, "O 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 onto 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 onto the ground, and turned
around on his heels and walked off.

They took Boggs to a little drug store, 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 breath, and letting it down again when he breathed it
out--and after that he laid 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 scrouging
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; 'tain't right and 'tain't fair for you to stay thar all the
time, and never give nobody a chance; other folks has their rights as
well as you."

There was considerable jawing 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 Boggs
stood and where Sherburn stood, and the people following him around
from one place to t'other 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-brim down over his eyes, and
sung out, "Boggs!" 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 clothes-line they come to to do the hanging
with.

Waking up after a night of drinking, the duke and dauphin practice the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet and the swordfight from Richard III on the raft. The duke also works on his recitation of the "To be, or not to be" soliloquy from Hamlet, which he doesn't know well at all, throwing in lines from other parts of Hamlet and even some lines from Macbeth. To Huck, however, the duke seems to possess a great talent. Next, the group visits a one-horse town in Arkansas where lazy young men loiter in the streets, arguing over chewing tobacco. Huck gives a detailed, absurd description of the town. The duke posts handbills for the theatrical performance, and Huck witnesses the shooting of a rowdy drunk by a man, Sherburn, whom the drunk has insulted. The shooting takes place in front of the victim's daughter. A crowd gathers around the dying man and then goes off to lynch Sherburn


They swarmed up towards Sherburn's house, a-whooping and raging like
Injuns, and everything had to clear the way or get run over and
tromped to mush, and it was awful to see. Children was heeling 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, and bucks and wenches looking over every
fence; and as soon as the mob would get nearly to them they would
break and skaddle 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 onto the roof of his little front porch,
with a double-barrel gun in his hand, and takes his stand, perfectly
ca'm 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 eye
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 are 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 pluck 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 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 the 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 Harkness, there--and if you
hadn't had him to start you, you'd 'a' 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 Harkness, 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 onto that
half-a-man's coat-tail, and come raging up here, swearing what big
things you're going to do. The pitifulest 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's 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-a-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 went
tearing off every which way, and Buck Harkness he heeled it after
them, looking tolerable cheap. I could 'a' stayed if I wanted to, but
I didn't want to.

I went to the circus and loafed around the back side 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 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 come riding in, two and two, and gentleman and lady,
side by side, the men just in their drawers and undershirts, and no
shoes nor stirrups, and resting their hands on their thighs easy and
comfortable--there must 'a' 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 men looking ever so tall and airy
and straight, with their heads bobbing and skimming along, away up
there under the tent-roof, and every lady's rose-leafy dress flapping
soft and silky around her hips, and she looking like the most
loveliest 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 everybody 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 so 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 no way
understand. Why, I couldn't 'a' thought of them in a year. And by and
by a drunken man tried to get into the ring--said he wanted to ride;
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 come
to a standstill. Then the people begun to holler at him and make fun
of him, and that made him mad, and he begun to rip and tear; so that
stirred up the people, and a lot of men begun to pile down off of the
benches and swarm toward the ring, saying, "Knock him down! throw him
out!" and one or two women begun 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 begun to rip and tear and jump and
cavort around, with two circus men hanging on to his bridle trying to
hold him, and the drunk man hanging on to his neck, and 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 sot
laying down on him and hanging to his neck, with first one leg hanging
most to the ground on one side, and then t'other one on t'other side,
and the people just crazy. It warn't funny to me, though; I was all of
a tremble to see his danger. But pretty soon he struggled up astraddle
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
a-going like a house afire, too. He just stood up there, a-sailing
around as easy and comfortable as if he warn't ever drunk in his
life--and then he begun to pull off his clothes and sling them. He
shed them so thick they kind of clogged up the air, and altogether he
shed seventeen 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 'a' 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 wherever I run across it, it can have all of _my_
custom every time.

Well, that night we had _our_ show; but there warn'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 said
these Arkansaw 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 size 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 COURT HOUSE!
   FOR 3 NIGHTS ONLY!
   _The World-Renowned Tragedians_
   DAVID GARRICK THE YOUNGER!
      AND
   EDMUND KEAN THE ELDER!
   Of the London and Continental
   Theatres,
   In their Thrilling Tragedy of
   THE KING'S CAMELEOPARD,
      OR
   THE ROYAL NONESUCH ! ! !
   _Admission 50 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
Arkansaw!"

The lynch mob charges through the streets, proceeds to Sherburn's house, and knocks down the front fence. The crowd quickly backs away, however, as Sherburn greets them from the roof of his front porch, rifle in hand. After a chilling silence, Sherburn delivers a haughty speech on human nature in which he attacks the cowardice and mob mentality of the average person. Sherburn tells the crowd that no one will lynch him in the daytime. The mob, chastened, disperses. Huck then goes to the circus, a "splendid" show with a quick-witted clown. A performer, pretending to be a drunk, forces himself into the ring and tries to ride a horse, apparently hanging on for dear life. The crowd roars in amusement, except for Huck, who cannot bear to watch the poor man in danger. That night, only twelve people attend the duke's performance, and they jeer throughout the entire show. The duke then prints another handbill, this time advertising a performance of The King's Cameleopard or The Royal Nonesuch. Bold letters across the bottom read, "Women and Children Not Admitted


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 onto 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 ag'in, 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!'

"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!"

The Royal Nonesuch plays to a capacity audience. The dauphin, who appears onstage wearing nothing aside from body paint and some "wild" accoutrements, has the audience howling with laughter. But the crowd nearly attacks the duke and the dauphin when they end the show after only a brief performance. The people in the crowd, embarrassed at having been ripped off, decide to protect their honor by making certain that everyone in the town gets ripped off. After the performance, they tell everyone else in town that the play was wonderful. The second night, therefore, also brings a capacity crowd. As the duke has anticipated, the crowd on the third night consists of the two previous nights' audiences coming to get their revenge. Huck and the duke make a getaway to the raft before the show starts. They have earned $465 over the three-night run. Jim is shocked that the royals are such "rapscallions. Huck explains that history shows nobles to be rapscallions who constantly lie, steal, and decapitate, but his history knowledge is factually very questionable. Huck does not see the point in telling Jim that the duke and the dauphin are fakes. Jim spends his night watches "moaning and mourning" for his wife and two children. Though "it don't seem natural," Huck concludes that Jim loves his family as much as white men love theirs. Jim is torn apart when he hears a thud in the distance that reminds him of the time he beat his daughter Lizabeth for not doing what he told her to do. When he was beating her, Jim didn't realize that Lizabeth couldn't hear his instructions because a bout with scarlet fever had left her deaf

Although the duke and the dauphin become increasingly malicious and cruel in their scams, Twain continues to portray the victims of the con men's schemes as unflatteringly as the con men themselves. The duke and the dauphin's production of The Royal Nonesuch, for example, is a complete farce, a brief, insubstantial show for which the audience is grossly overcharged. But what makes the con men's show a real success, however, is not any ingenuity on their part--they are as inept as ever--but rather the audience's own selfishness and vindictiveness. Rather than warn the other townspeople that the show was terrible, the first night's ticketholders would rather see everyone else get ripped off in the same way they did. Thus, the con men's scheme becomes even more successful because the townspeople display vindictiveness rather than selflessness. In much the same way, the cruel scheme to steal the Wilks family's inheritance succeeds only because of the stupidity and gullibility of the Wilks sisters, particularly Mary Jane. Admittedly, the grieving Wilks sisters likely are not in the best frame of mind to think rationally after their loss. Nonetheless, despite the fact that the duke and the dauphin are hilariously inept in their role-playing and fake in their accents, the only person who even begins to suspect them is Doctor Robinson--and Mary Jane dismisses his advice without a thought. But even the Doctor comes across as annoyingly self-righteous. Together, these episodes contribute to the overall sense of moral confusion in the world of Huckleberry Finn. Although the con men's audacity and maliciousness are sometimes shocking, Twain's portrayal of the victims is often equally unsympathetic. Jim, meanwhile, displays an honest sensitivity that contrasts him ever more strongly with the debased white characters who surround him. Jim bares himself emotionally to Huck, expressing a poignant longing for his family and admitting his errors as a father when he tells of the time he beat his daughter when she did not deserve it. Jim's willingness to put himself in a vulnerable position and admit his failings to Huck adds a new dimension of humanity to his character. Jim's nobility becomes even more apparent when we recall that he has been willing to forgive others throughout the novel, even though he is unable to forgive himself for one honest mistake. As we see in these chapters, Jim's honesty and emotional openness have a profound effect on Huck. Having been brought up among racist white assumptions, Huck is surprised to see that ties of familial love can be as strong among blacks as among whites. Although Huck's development is still incomplete--he still qualifies his observations a bit, noting that it doesn't seem "natural" for Jim to be so attached to his family--his mind is open and he clearly views Jim more as a human and less as a slave.