THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) BY MARK TWAIN

“This is a surprise to me which I wasn’t looking for; and I’ll acknowledge, candid and frank, I ain’t very well fixed to meet it and answer it; for my brother and me has had misfortunes; he’s broke his arm, and our baggage got put off at a town above here last night in the night by a mistake. I am Peter Wilks’ brother Harvey, and this is his brother William, which can’t hear nor speak — and can’t even make signs to amount to much, now’t he’s only got one hand to work them with. We are who we say we are; and in a day or two, when I get the baggage, I can prove it. But up till then I won’t say nothing more, but go to the hotel and wait.”

So him and the new dummy started off; and the king he laughs, and blethers out:

“Broke his arm — VERY likely, AIN’T it? — and very convenient, too, for a fraud that’s got to make signs, and ain’t learnt how. Lost their baggage! That’s MIGHTY good! — and mighty ingenious — under the CIRCUMSTANCES!

So he laughed again; and so did everybody else, except three or four, or maybe half a dozen. One of these was that doctor; another one was a sharp- looking gentleman, with a carpet-bag of the old- fashioned kind made out of carpet-stuff, that had just come off of the steamboat and was talking to him in a low voice, and glancing towards the king now and then and nodding their heads — it was Levi Bell, the lawyer that was gone up to Louisville; and another one was a big rough husky that come along and listened to all the old gentleman said, and was listening to the king now. And when the king got done this husky up and says:

“Say, looky here; if you are Harvey Wilks, when’d you come to this town?”

“The day before the funeral, friend,” says the king.

“But what time o’ day?”

“In the evenin’ — ’bout an hour er two before sun- down.”

“HOW’D you come?”

“I come down on the Susan Powell from Cincin- nati.”

“Well, then, how’d you come to be up at the Pint in the MORNIN’ — in a canoe?”

“I warn’t up at the Pint in the mornin’.”

“It’s a lie.”

Several of them jumped for him and begged him not to talk that way to an old man and a preacher.

“Preacher be hanged, he’s a fraud and a liar. He was up at the Pint that mornin’. I live up there, don’t I? Well, I was up there, and he was up there. I see him there. He come in a canoe, along with Tim Collins and a boy.”

The doctor he up and says:

“Would you know the boy again if you was to see him, Hines?”

“I reckon I would, but I don’t know. Why, yonder he is, now. I know him perfectly easy.”

It was me he pointed at. The doctor says:

“Neighbors, I don’t know whether the new couple is frauds or not; but if THESE two ain’t frauds, I am an idiot, that’s all. I think it’s our duty to see that they don’t get away from here till we’ve looked into this thing. Come along, Hines; come along, the rest of you. We’ll take these fellows to the tavern and affront them with t’other couple, and I reckon we’ll find out SOMETHING before we get through.”

It was nuts for the crowd, though maybe not for the king’s friends; so we all started. It was about sundown. The doctor he led me along by the hand, and was plenty kind enough, but he never let go my hand.

We all got in a big room in the hotel, and lit up some candles, and fetched in the new couple. First, the doctor says:

“I don’t wish to be too hard on these two men, but I think they’re frauds, and they may have complices that we don’t know nothing about. If they have, won’t the complices get away with that bag of gold Peter Wilks left? It ain’t unlikely. If these men ain’t frauds, they won’t object to sending for that money and letting us keep it till they prove they’re all right — ain’t that so?”