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 Iā€™ve tried ā€™em all, and therā€™ ainā€™t no better way.ā€

Most everybody would a been satisfied with the pile, and took it on trust; but no, they must count it.  So they counts it, and it comes out four hundred and fifteen dollars short.  Says the king:

ā€œDern him, I wonder what he done with that four hundred and fifteen dollars?ā€

They worried over that awhile, and ransacked all around for it.  Then the duke says:

ā€œWell, he was a pretty sick man, and likely he made a mistakeā€”I reckon thatā€™s the way of it.  The best wayā€™s to let it go, and keep still about it.  We can spare it.ā€

ā€œOh, shucks, yes, we can spare it.  I donā€™t kā€™yer nothā€™n ā€™bout thatā€”itā€™s the count Iā€™m thinkinā€™ about.  We want to be awful square and open and above-board here, you know.  We want to lug this h-yer money up stairs and count it before everybodyā€”then therā€™ ainā€™t nothā€™n suspicious.  But when the dead man says therā€™s six thousā€™n dollars, you know, we donā€™t want toā€”ā€

ā€œHold on,ā€ says the duke.  "Leā€™s make up the deffisit,ā€ and he begun to haul out yaller-boys out of his pocket.







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ā€œItā€™s a most amazā€™nā€™ good idea, dukeā€”you have got a rattlinā€™ clever head on you,ā€ says the king.  "Blest if the old Nonesuch ainā€™t a heppinā€™ us out agin,ā€ and he begun to haul out yaller-jackets and stack them up.

It most busted them, but they made up the six thousand clean and clear.

ā€œSay,ā€ says the duke, ā€œI got another idea.  Leā€™s go up stairs and count this money, and then take and give it to the girls.ā€

ā€œGood land, duke, lemme hug you!  Itā€™s the most dazzling idea ā€™at ever a man struck.  You have certā€™nly got the most astonishinā€™ head I ever see. Oh, this is the boss dodge, therā€™ ainā€™t no mistake ā€™bout it.  Let ā€™em fetch along their suspicions now if they want toā€”this ā€™ll lay ā€™em out.ā€

When we got up-stairs everybody gethered around the table, and the king he counted it and stacked it up, three hundred dollars in a pileā€”twenty elegant little piles.  Everybody looked hungry at it, and licked their chops.  Then they raked it into the bag again, and I see the king begin to swell himself up for another speech.  He says:

ā€œFriends all, my poor brother that lays yonder has done generous by them thatā€™s left behind in the vale of sorrers.  He has done generous by these yer poor little lambs that he loved and sheltered, and thatā€™s left fatherless and motherless.  Yes, and we that knowed him knows that he would a done more generous by ā€™em if he hadnā€™t ben afeard oā€™ woundinā€™ his dear William and me.  Now, wouldnā€™t he?  Therā€™ ainā€™t no question ā€™bout it in my mind.  Well, then, what kind oā€™ brothers would it be that ā€™d stand in his way at sech a time?  And what kind oā€™ uncles would it be that ā€™d robā€”yes, robā€”sech poor sweet lambs as these ā€™at he loved so at sech a time?  If I know Williamā€”and I think I doā€”heā€”well, Iā€™ll jest ask him.ā€ He turns around and begins to make a lot of signs to the duke with his hands, and the duke he looks at him stupid and leather-headed a while; then all of a sudden he seems to catch his meaning, and jumps for the king, goo-gooing with all his might for joy, and hugs him about fifteen times before he lets up.  Then the king says, ā€œI knowed it; I reckon that ā€™ll convince anybody the way he feels about it.  Here, Mary Jane, Susan, Joanner, take the moneyā€”take it all.  Itā€™s the gift of him that lays yonder, cold but joyful.ā€







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Mary Jane she went for him, Susan and the hare-lip went for the duke, and then such another hugging and kissing I never see yet.  And everybody crowded up with the tears in their eyes, and most shook the hands off of them frauds, saying all the time:

ā€œYou dear good souls!ā€”how lovely!ā€”how could you!ā€

Well, then, pretty soon all hands got to talking about the diseased again, and how good he was, and what a loss he was, and all that; and before long a big iron-jawed man worked himself in there from outside, and stood a-listening and looking, and not saying anything; and nobody saying anything to him either, because the king was talking and they was all busy listening.  The king was sayingā€”in the middle of something heā€™d started in onā€”

ā€œā€”they beinā€™ partickler friends oā€™ the diseased.  Thatā€™s why theyā€™re invited here this eveninā€™; but tomorrow we want all to comeā€”everybody; for he respected everybody, he liked everybody, and so itā€™s fitten that his funeral orgies shā€™d be public.ā€

And so he went a-mooning on and on, liking to hear himself talk, and every little while he fetched in his funeral orgies again, till the duke he couldnā€™t stand it no more; so he writes on a little scrap of paper, ā€œObsequies, you old fool,ā€ and folds it up, and goes to goo-gooing and reaching it over peopleā€™s heads to him.  The king he reads it and puts it in his pocket, and says:

ā€œPoor William, afflicted as he is, his heartā€™s aluz right.  Asks me to invite everybody to come to the funeralā€”wants me to make ā€™em all welcome.  But he neednā€™t a worriedā€”it was jest what I was at.ā€

Then he weaves along again, perfectly caā€™m, and goes to dropping in his funeral orgies again every now and then, just like he done before.  And when he done it the third time he says:

ā€œI say orgies, not because itā€™s the common term, because it ainā€™tā€”obsequies beinā€™ the common termā€”but because orgies is the right term. Obsequies ainā€™t used in England no more nowā€”itā€™s gone out.  We say orgies now in England.  Orgies is better, because it means the thing youā€™re after more exact.  Itā€™s a word thatā€™s made up outā€™n the Greek orgo, outside, open, abroad; and the Hebrew jeesum, to plant, cover up; hence inter.  So, you see, funeral orgies is an open er public funeral.ā€

He was the worst I ever struck.  Well, the iron-jawed man he laughed right in his face.  Everybody was shocked.  Everybody says, ā€œWhy, doctor!ā€ and Abner Shackleford says:

ā€œWhy, Robinson, hainā€™t you heard the news?  This is Harvey Wilks.ā€

The king he smiled eager, and shoved out his flapper, and says:

ā€œIs it my poor brotherā€™s dear good friend and physician?  Iā€”ā€

ā€œKeep your hands off of me!ā€ says the doctor.  ā€œYou talk like an Englishman, donā€™t you?  Itā€™s the worst imitation I ever heard.  You Peter Wilksā€™s brother!  Youā€™re a fraud, thatā€™s what you are!ā€







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Well, how they all took on!  They crowded around the doctor and tried to quiet him down, and tried to explain to him and tell him how Harvey ā€™d showed in forty ways that he was Harvey, and knowed everybody by name, and the names of the very dogs, and begged and begged him not to hurt Harveyā€™s feelings and the poor girlā€™s feelings, and all that.  But it warnā€™t no use; he stormed right along, and said any man that pretended to be an Englishman and couldnā€™t imitate the lingo no better than what he did was a fraud and a liar.  The poor girls was hanging to the king and crying; and all of a sudden the doctor ups and turns on them.  He says:

ā€œI was your fatherā€™s friend, and Iā€™m your friend; and I warn you as a friend, and an honest one that wants to protect you and keep you out of harm and trouble, to turn your backs on that scoundrel and have nothing to do with him, the ignorant tramp, with his idiotic Greek and Hebrew, as he calls it.  He is the thinnest kind of an impostorā€”has come here with a lot of empty names and facts which he picked up somewheres, and you take them for proofs, and are helped to fool yourselves by these foolish friends here, who ought to know better.  Mary Jane Wilks, you know me for your friend, and for your unselfish friend, too.  Now listen to me; turn this pitiful rascal outā€”I beg you to do it.  Will you?ā€

Mary Jane straightened herself up, and my, but she was handsome!  She says:

ā€œHere is my answer.ā€  She hove up the bag of money and put it in the kingā€™s hands, and says, ā€œTake this six thousand dollars, and invest for me and my sisters any way you want to, and donā€™t give us no receipt for it.ā€

Then she put her arm around the king on one side, and Susan and the hare-lip done the same on the other.  Everybody clapped their hands and stomped on the floor like a perfect storm, whilst the king held up his head and smiled proud.  The doctor says:

ā€œAll right; I wash my hands of the matter.  But I warn you all that a time ā€™s coming when youā€™re going to feel sick whenever you think of this day.ā€ And away he went.

ā€œAll right, doctor,ā€ says the king, kinder mocking him; ā€œweā€™ll try and get ā€™em to send for you;ā€ which made them all laugh, and they said it was a prime good hit.







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CHAPTER XXVI.

WELL, when they was all gone the king he asks Mary Jane how they was off for spare rooms, and she said she had one spare room, which would do for Uncle William, and sheā€™d give her own room to Uncle Harvey, which was a little bigger, and she would turn into the room with her sisters and sleep on a cot; and up garret was a little cubby, with a pallet in it. The king said the cubby would do for his valleyā€”meaning me.

So Mary Jane took us up, and she showed them their rooms, which was plain but nice.  She said sheā€™d have her frocks and a lot of other traps took out of her room if they was in Uncle Harveyā€™s way, but he said they warnā€™t.  The frocks was hung along the wall, and before them was a curtain made out of calico that hung down to the floor.  There was an old hair trunk in one corner, and a guitar-box in another, and all sorts of little knickknacks and jimcracks around, like girls brisken up a room with.  The king said it was all the more homely and more pleasanter for these fixings, and so donā€™t disturb them.  The dukeā€™s room was pretty small, but plenty good enough, and so was my cubby.

That night they had a big supper, and all them men and women was there, and I stood behind the king and the dukeā€™s chairs and waited on them, and the niggers waited on the rest.  Mary Jane she set at the head of the table, with Susan alongside of her, and said how bad the biscuits was, and how mean the preserves was, and how ornery and tough the fried chickens wasā€”and all that kind of rot, the way women always do for to force out compliments; and the people all knowed everything was tiptop, and said soā€”said ā€œHow do you get biscuits to brown so nice?ā€ and ā€œWhere, for the landā€™s sake, did you get these amazā€™n pickles?ā€ and all that kind of humbug talky-talk, just the way people always does at a supper, you know.







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And when it was all done me and the hare-lip had supper in the kitchen off of the leavings, whilst the others was helping the niggers clean up the things.  The hare-lip she got to pumping me about England, and blest if I didnā€™t think the ice was getting mighty thin sometimes.  She says:

ā€œDid you ever see the king?ā€

ā€œWho?  William Fourth?  Well, I bet I haveā€”he goes to our church.ā€  I knowed he was dead years ago, but I never let on.  So when I says he

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