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.I never see anything so disgusting.Well, by and by the king he gets up and comes forward a little, andworks himself up and slobbers out a speech, all full of tears and flap-doodle about its being a sore trial for him and his poor brother tolose the diseased, and to miss seeing diseased alive after the long jour-ney of four thousand mile, but it s a trial that s sweetened and sancti-fied to us by this dear sympathy and these holy tears, and so hethanks them out of his heart and out of his brother s heart, becauseout of their mouths they can t, words being too weak and cold, andall that kind of rot and slush, till it was just sickening; and then heblubbers out a pious goody-goody Amen, and turns himself looseand goes to crying fit to bust.And the minute the words were out of his mouth somebody overin the crowd struck up the doxolojer, and everybody joined in withall their might, and it just warmed you up and made you feel as goodas church letting out.Music is a good thing; and after all that soul-butter and hogwash I never see it freshen up things so, and sound sohonest and bully.Then the king begins to work his jaw again, and says how him andhis nieces would be glad if a few of the main principal friends of the167H U C K L E B E R R Y F I N Nfamily would take supper here with them this evening, and help setup with the ashes of the diseased; and says if his poor brother layingyonder could speak he knows who he would name, for they wasnames that was very dear to him, and mentioned often in his letters;and so he will name the same, to wit, as follows, vizz.: Rev.Mr.Hobson, and Deacon Lot Hovey, and Mr.Ben Rucker, and AbnerShackleford, and Levi Bell, and Dr.Robinson, and their wives, andthe widow Bartley.Rev.Hobson and Dr.Robinson was down to the end of the towna-hunting together that is, I mean the doctor was shipping a sickman to t other world, and the preacher was pinting him right.Lawyer Bell was away up to Louisville on business.But the rest wason hand, and so they all come and shook hands with the king andthanked him and talked to him; and then they shook hands with theduke and didn t say nothing, but just kept a-smiling and bobbingtheir heads like a passel of sapheads whilst he made all sorts of signswith his hands and said  Goo-goo goo-goo-goo all the time, like ababy that can t talk.So the king he blattered along, and managed to inquire about pret-ty much everybody and dog in town, by his name, and mentioned allsorts of little things that happened one time or another in the town,or to George s family, or to Peter.And he always let on that Peterwrote him the things; but that was a lie: he got every blessed one ofthem out of that young flathead that we canoed up to the steamboat.Then Mary Jane she fetched the letter her father left behind, andthe king he read it out loud and cried over it.It give the dwelling-house and three thousand dollars, gold, to the girls; and it give thetanyard (which was doing a good business), along with some otherhouses and land (worth about seven thousand), and three thousanddollars in gold to Harvey and William, and told where the six thou-sand cash was hid down cellar.So these two frauds said they d go andfetch it up, and have everything square and above-board; and told meto come with a candle.We shut the cellar door behind us, and whenthey found the bag they spilt it out on the floor, and it was a lovelysight, all them yaller-boys.My, the way the king s eyes did shine! Heslaps the duke on the shoulder and says:168H U C K L E B E R R Y F I N N Oh, this ain t bully nor noth n! Oh, no, I reckon not! Why, Biljy,it beats the Nonesuch, don t it?The duke allowed it did.They pawed the yaller-boys, and siftedthem through their fingers and let them jingle down on the floor;and the king says: It ain t no use talkin ; bein brothers to a rich dead man and repre-sentatives of furrin heirs that s got left is the line for you and me,Bilge.Thish yer comes of trust n to Providence.It s the best way, inthe long run.I ve tried  em all, and ther ain t no better way.Most everybody would a been satisfied with the pile, and took it ontrust; but no, they must count it.So they counts it, and it comes outfour hundred and fifteen dollars short.Says the king: Dern him, I wonder what he done with that four hundred and fif-teen dollars?They worried over that awhile, and ransacked all around for it.Then the duke says: Well, he was a pretty sick man, and likely he made a mistake Ireckon that s the way of it.The best way s to let it go, and keep stillabout it.We can spare it. Oh, shucks, yes, we can spare it.I don t k yer noth n  bout thatit s the count I m thinkin about.We want to be awful square andopen and above-board here, you know.We want to lug this h-yermoney up stairs and count it before everybody then ther ain tnoth n suspicious.But when the dead man says ther s six thous n dol-lars, you know, we don t want to  Hold on, says the duke. Le s make up the deffisit, and he begunto haul out yaller-boys out of his pocket. It s a most amaz n good idea, duke you have got a rattlin cleverhead on you, says the king. Blest if the old Nonesuch ain t a hep-pin us out agin, and he begun to haul out yaller-jackets and stackthem up.It most busted them, but they made up the six thousand clean andclear. Say, says the duke,  I got another idea.Le s go up stairs andcount this money, and then take and give to the girls. Good land, duke, lemme hug you! It s the most dazzling idea  at169H U C K L E B E R R Y F I N Never a man struck.You have cert nly got the most astonishin head Iever see.Oh, this is the boss dodge, ther ain t no mistake  bout it.Let em fetch along their suspicions now if they want to this  ll lay  emout.When we got upstairs everybody gethered around the table, andthe king he counted it and stacked it up, three hundred dollars in apile twenty elegant little piles.Everybody looked hungry at it, andlicked their chops.Then they raked it into the bag again, and I seethe king begin to swell himself up for another speech.He says: Friends all, my poor brother that lays yonder has done generousby them that s left behind in the vale of sorrers.He has done gener-ous by these yer poor little lambs that he loved and sheltered, andthat s left fatherless and motherless.Yes, and we that knowed himknows that he would a done more generous by  em if he hadn t benafeard o woundin his dear William and me.Now, wouldn t he? Therain t no question  bout it in my mind [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]