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don't git mad; didn't you have it in your mind to hook the money and

hide it?" ssssssssss

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." ssssssssss

"I wisht I may 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 begun 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 onto a lot of poor niggers 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

deffesit -- you wanted to get what money I'd got out of the Nonesuch and one

thing or another, and scoop it all!" ssssssssss

The king says, timid, and still a snuffling:

"Why, duke, it was you that said make up the deffersit, 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!" ssssssssss

So the king sneaked into the wigwam, and took to his bottle for comfort; and

before long the duke tackled Us 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

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