{{huckfp209.jpg}}

of it. And all the time he was a doing it, he tried to talk like an Englishman;

and he done it pretty well too, for a slouch. I can't imitate him, and so I ain't

agoing to try to; but he really done it pretty good. Then he says:

"How are you on the deef and dumb, Bilgewater?"

The duke said, leave him alone for that; said he had played a deef and dumb

person on the histrionic boards. So then they waited for a steamboat.

About the middle of the afternoon a couple of little boats come along, but

they didn't come from high enough up the river; but at last there was a big one,

and they hailed her. She sent out her yawl, and we went aboard, and she was

from Cincinnati; and when they found we only wanted to go four or five mile,

they was booming mad, and give us ssssssssss

a cussing, and said they wouldn't ssssssssss

laud us. But the king was ca'm. ssssssssss

He says: ssssssssss

"If gentlemen kin afford to pay

a dollar a mile apiece, to be took ssssssssss

on and put off in a yawl, a steam- ssssssssss

boat kin afford to carry 'em, can't ssssssssss

it?"

So they softened down and said

it was all right; and when we ssssssssss

got to the village, they yawled us ssssssssss

ashore. About two dozen men ssssssssss

flocked down, when they see the ssssssssss

yawl a coming; and when the king ssssssssss

"Kin any of you gentlemen ssssssssss

tell me wher' Mr. Peter Wilks ssssssssss

lives?" they give a glance at one ssssssssss

another, and nodded their heads, ssssssssss

as much as to say, "What d' I tell you: ssssssssss

and gentle: ssssssssss

Then one of them says, kind of soft??

ssssssssss

 [209]