Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Chapter ***.
WHEN they got aboard the king went for me,
and shook me by the collar, and says:
"Tryin' to give us the slip, was ye, you
pup!
Tired of our company, hey?"
I says:
"No, your majesty, we warn't--PLEASE don't,
your majesty!"
"Quick, then, and tell us what WAS your
idea, or I'll shake the insides out o'
you!"
"Honest, I'll tell you everything just as
it happened, your majesty.
The man that had a-holt of me was very good
to me, and kept saying he had a boy about
as big as me that died last year, and he
was sorry to see a boy in such a dangerous
fix; and when they was all took by surprise
by finding the gold, and made a rush for
the coffin, he lets go of me and whispers,
'Heel it now, or they'll hang ye, sure!'
and I lit out.
It didn't seem no good for ME to stay--I
couldn't do nothing, and I didn't want to
be hung if I could get away.
So I never stopped running till I found the
canoe; and when I got here I told Jim to
hurry, or they'd catch me and hang me yet,
and said I was afeard you and the duke
wasn't alive now, and I was awful sorry,
and so was Jim, and was awful glad when we
see you coming; you may ask Jim if I
didn't."
Jim said it was so; and the king told him
to shut up, and said, "Oh, yes, it's MIGHTY
likely!" and shook me up again, and said he
reckoned he'd drownd me.
But the duke says:
"Leggo the boy, you old idiot!
Would YOU a done any different?
Did you inquire around for HIM when you got
loose?
I don't remember it."
So the king let go of me, and begun to cuss
that town and everybody in it.
But the duke says:
"You better a blame' sight give YOURSELF a
good cussing, for you're the one that's
entitled to it most.
You hain't done a thing from the start that
had any sense in it, except coming out so
cool and cheeky with that imaginary blue-
arrow mark.
That WAS bright--it was right down bully;
and it was the thing that saved us.
For if it hadn't been for that they'd a
jailed us till them Englishmen's baggage
come--and then--the penitentiary, you bet!
But that trick took 'em to the graveyard,
and the gold done us a still bigger
kindness; for if the excited fools hadn't
let go all holts and made that rush to get
a look we'd a slept in our cravats to-
night--cravats warranted to WEAR, too--
longer than WE'D need 'em."
They was still a minute--thinking; then the
king says, kind of absent-minded like:
"Mf!
And we reckoned the *** stole it!"
That made me squirm!
"Yes," says the duke, kinder slow and
deliberate and sarcastic, "WE did."
After about a half a minute the king drawls
out:
"Leastways, I did."
The duke says, the same way:
"On the contrary, I did."
The king kind of ruffles up, and says:
"Looky here, Bilgewater, what'r you
referrin' to?"
The duke says, pretty brisk:
"When it comes to that, maybe you'll let me
ask, what was YOU referring to?"
"Shucks!" says the king, very sarcastic;
"but I don't know--maybe you was asleep,
and didn't know what you was about."
The duke bristles up now, and says:
"Oh, let UP on this cussed nonsense; do you
take me for a blame' fool?
Don't you reckon I know who hid that money
in that coffin?"
"YES, sir!
I know you DO know, because you done it
yourself!"
"It's a lie!"--and the duke went for him.
The king sings out:
"Take y'r hands off!--leggo my throat!--I
take it all back!"
The duke says:
"Well, you just own up, first, that you DID
hide that money there, intending to give me
the slip one of these days, and come back
and dig it up, and have it all to
yourself."
"Wait jest a minute, duke--answer me this
one question, honest and fair; if you
didn't put the money there, say it, and
I'll b'lieve you, and take back everything
I said."
"You old scoundrel, I didn't, and you know
I didn't.
There, now!"
"Well, then, I b'lieve you.
But answer me only jest this one more--now
DON'T git mad; didn't you have it in your
mind to hook the money and hide it?"
The duke never said nothing for a little
bit; then he says:
"Well, I don't care if I DID, I didn't DO
it, anyway.
But you not only had it in mind to do it,
but you DONE it."
"I wisht I never die if I done it, duke,
and that's honest.
I won't say I warn't goin' to do it,
because I WAS; but you--I mean somebody--
got in ahead o' me."
"It's a lie!
You done it, and you got to SAY you done
it, or--"
The king began to gurgle, and then he gasps
out:
"'Nough!--I OWN UP!"
I was very glad to hear him say that; it
made me feel much more easier than what I
was feeling before.
So the duke took his hands off and says:
"If you ever deny it again I'll drown you.
It's WELL for you to set there and blubber
like a baby--it's fitten for you, after the
way you've acted.
I never see such an old ostrich for wanting
to gobble everything --and I a-trusting you
all the time, like you was my own father.
You ought to been ashamed of yourself to
stand by and hear it saddled on to a lot of
poor ***, and you never say a word for
'em.
It makes me feel ridiculous to think I was
soft enough to BELIEVE that rubbage.
Cuss you, I can see now why you was so
anxious to make up the deffisit--you wanted
to get what money I'd got out of the
Nonesuch and one thing or another, and
scoop it ALL!"
The king says, timid, and still a-
snuffling:
"Why, duke, it was you that said make up
the deffisit; it warn't me."
"Dry up!
I don't want to hear no more out of you!"
says the duke.
"And NOW you see what you GOT by it.
They've got all their own money back, and
all of OURN but a shekel or two BESIDES.
G'long to bed, and don't you deffersit ME
no more deffersits, long 's YOU live!"
So the king sneaked into the wigwam and
took to his bottle for comfort, and before
long the duke tackled HIS bottle; and so in
about a half an hour they was as thick as
thieves again, and the tighter they got the
lovinger they got, and went off a-snoring
in each other's arms.
They both got powerful mellow, but I
noticed the king didn't get mellow enough
to forget to remember to not deny about
hiding the money-bag again.
That made me feel easy and satisfied.
Of course when they got to snoring we had a
long gabble, and I told Jim everything.