humor.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1157, 27 June 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

humor.

The Adventures of ISwt'klebftrry Finn.

By Mask Twain.

The humor in this book is iuser and more subuaedtlian in MarkTwainV previous works, anrl although the brilliant humorist jihm adopted a styla Wdictt would not, b 3 ea-iily rocj'.ni-od es hi.-?, it 13 r.fvartheleaa a very clever bouk Tn« ua-o ch:<:i characters are a nfgro bameil Jim and tbe boy llujk Firm. Jiui escapsa from alavs-.ry anu hiuea ia an inland on the Mirf.-i^ipi, where he meets his old fi-ioud Uuck.. who ia running from & cirunlstt/i father. They scours a fragment oi a lumber rdft and on it make voyage down sT^ata hy ni^Lt, ltidicg themselves and the raft in the day-time.

IV-aclers who have met Ruck Finn before (m Turn Sawyer) will nos be surprised to note tUit whenever Huck is caught in a t»g ! \t place and obliged to explain, tbe truth prts well crippled bofore he gets through. The most amusing portions of the book are the adventures down the river with two undesirable papsecgers, the dubs anil r,!if> king, who get into Huck'a cunu<a in a hu ;ry to p'Cipe tbe wrath o£ a-qxinuled ana avenging town, whose inhabitants turn ouc to a man in hot pursuit of the vagabonds. This is how Huck tells the yarn :

Oi.e morning about day-break, I found a canoe and crossed over a chute to the innia shore— it was only two huodr^d yaids— and pa.luk-d about a miie up a cjiok amongst the cypress woods, to see if' I couldn't yet some berries. Just as I was passing a place where a kind of cow-path crossGd the crick, here comes a couple of men tearing up the path as tight as they could foot it. I thought I was a goner, for whenever an j body waa aftor anybody I judged it was vie — or maybe Jim. I was about to dig out from there in a hurry, but they were pretty close to me then, and sung and begged me to save their livea— said they hadn't been doing nothing, and was being chased for it— said there was men and dog? a-coming. They wanted to jump right in, but I says — " Don't you do it. I don't hear the dogs find horses yet ; you've got time to crowd through the brush and get up the crick a lictle ways ; then you take to the water and wadp down to me and get in— that'll throw the clogs off the scent." Toey done it, and soon as they was aboard J lit opt for our tow-head, and in-about five or ten minutes we heard the dogs and the men away off, shouting. We heard them come along towards the crick, but couldn't see them ; thuy seemed to stop and fool around a while ; then, as we got further and further away all the time, we couldn't hardly hear them at all ; by the time we had left a miie of woods beiiind U3 and struck the river, everything was q^iet, ■ and we paddled over to the tow-head and hid in the cotton-woods and wbb 3afe.

Ona of these fellows was about seventy, or upwards, and had a bald head and very grey v. Liokurs. He had an old battered-up slouch hat on, and a greasy blue woollen shirt, and ragged old blue jeau britches stuffed into his boot tops, and home-knit galluses — no, he ouly had one. He had an old long-tailed blue jeans coat with slick brass buttons, flung over his arm, and both of them had big fat ratty-boking carpet-bags. The other fallow was about thirty and drcqsed about as ornery. After breakfast ws a 1 laid off and talked, and the first thing that come out was that these chaps didn't know one another.

41 What got you into trouble ?" says the baldbead to t'other chap. •• Well, I'd been selling an article to take She tarur off the teeth— and it does take it oil too. and generly the enamel along with it —but I staid about one night longer than I ought to, and was just in the act of sliding oiit when I ran across you on the trail this side of town, and you told me they were coining, and begged me to help you to get off. Sj I told you I waa expecting trouble myself aud would scatter out with you. That's the whole yarn — what's yourn ?" '• Well, I'd ben a-runnin a little temperance revival thar, 'bout a week, and was the pet of tha women-folks, big and little, for I was ni*kia' it mighty warm for the rummies, I tell you, and takin' as much as five or six dollars a night— ten cents a head, children and niggers free— and business a growin' all the- time, when somehow or another a little report got around, last night, that I had a way of puttin' in my time with a private jug, on the sly. A nigger rousted me out this moroin', and told me the people ?;as getherin' on the quiet, with their dugs and horses, and they'd be along pretty Boon and give me 'bout half an hour's start, and then run me down, if they could ; and if they got me they'd tar and feather me and ride me on a rail, sure. I didn't wait for no breakfast— l warn't hungry." " Old man," says the young one. " I reckon we might double-team it together : what do you think ? " " I ain't undisposed. What's your line— *mainly ? " , "Jour printer, by trade; do a little in patent medicines ; theatre-actor— tragedy, you anow; take a turn at mesmerism and phrenolo 6 y when there's a ohanoe; teaoh singing geography /school for a change ; sling a lecture, sometimes— oh, Ido lots of things— most anything that oomes handy, so as it ain't work, What's your lay ? " " I've done considerable in the doctoring way in my time. Layin' on o' hands is my best holt— for cancer, and paralysis, and Bioh things ; and I k'n tell a fortune pretty good, when I've got somebody along to find out the facts for me. Preaohin's my line, too, and woxkin' camp-meetin's ; and missionaryin' around." Nobody never said anything for a while ; then the young man hove a sigh and says — "Alas I"

"What 're yon alassin 1 about 7" says the baldhcad. " To think I should hava lived to be lead-

ing suoh a H'<\ and ba degraded down into such compan y." Aid he begun to wip9 tho corner of bis e^e with a m?. " D-ern your s-k-n, oiu't th<= compiny good enon^h for yon ?"' says the baldhead, pretty pert and uppish. " Yea, it is goo'l enough for me ; it's as good as I deserve ; for who fetched ma so low ; when I was so high ? I did myself. I don't blame you, genUi-men— « B r from it; I don't blame anybody. I deserve it all. Let the cold world do its worst ; one thing I know — there's a grave somewhere for me. Tbe world may go on jast >•■; itV «.! vajs done, and tike everything from mo— loved or«e?, property, everything— but it oan't take that. Some day I'll lie down in it aiid forget it all. and my poor broken heart will bs ai rest. 1 ' Ra -went on a-wiping. "Drotyour pore brot;--n heart," says tho baldhead : " what are you heavina yocr pore broken heart at us f'r? We hain't done nothing." " No, I know you haven't. I ain't blaming you, gentlemen. I hroagHi zr>ys&}£ do\m yes, I did it myself It's nsht I should suffer—perfectly right— l don't maka any moan." " Brought you down from wnar ? Whar was you brought down from ? " " Ah, you would not believe me ; the world never believes — let it pass — 'tis no matter. The secret of my birth " "The seoret of your birth ? Do you mean to say " " Gentlemen," says tha young man, very solemn, " I will reveal it to you, for I feel I may have confidence in you. By rights lam a Jake I " Jim's eyes bugged out when he heard that; and I reckon mine did, too. Then the baldhead says : "No I you oan't mean it '? " " Yes. My greatgrand-father, eldest son of the Duke of Bridgesater, fl«d to this country about the end of the last century, to breathe the pu: c air of freedom ; married here, and died, leaving a son, his own father dying about the mmc. time. The second eon of the late duke seized the title and estates — the infant real duke was ignored. lam the lineal descendant of that infaut — I am the rightful Duke of Bridgewarer ; and here ami, forlorn, corn from my high estate, hunted of men, despised by the cold world, ragged, worn, heart broken, and degraded to the companionship of ftlons on & raft ! " Jim pitied him ever so much, and so did I. Wo tried to comfort him, but ha said it warn't xuuoh use, he couldn't be muoh comforted ; said if we was & mind to acknowledge him, that would do him more good than most anything else ; so we said we would, if he would tell us how. He said we ought to bow, when we spoke to him, and say, " Your Grace," or '•My Lord," or "Your Lordship" — and he teouldn'i; mind ie if we called him plain '•Bridgewater," which he said was a title, anyway, and not a name; and one of us ought to wait on him at dinner, and to do any little thing for him he wanted done. Well, that waa all easy, so ws done it. All through dinner Jim stood around and waited on him, and says, " Will o' Grace have some o' dis, or eoaia o' that ? " and so on, and a body could see it was mighty pleasing to him. Bat the old man got pretty silynfc, bye-and-bye — didn't have much to say, and didn't look pretty comfortable ovux all that petting th&% was going on around that duke. He seemtd to have somslhing on hid mind. So, aif-ng in the afternoon, he &a>a : " Ljoky here, Bilgßwater," he cays, " I'm nation sorry for >ou, but you aia't the only peivioo that's had troubles like that." " No V " 4 No, you ain't. You ain't the only person that's ben snaked down wrongfully out'n a high place." "Alas!" '• No, you aia't the only person that's had a secret of his birth.' 1 And by jings, he begins to ory. " Hold ! What do you mean ? " " Bilgewater, kin I trust you ? " says the old man, still sort of sobbing. "To the bitter death 1 " He took the old man by the hand and squeezed it, and says, " The seoret of your being : speak I " " Bilgewater, I am the late Dauphin 1 " You bat you Jim and me stared, this time. Then the duke says : "You are what?" "Yes, my friend, it is too true— your eyes is lookin' at this very moment on the pore disappeared Dauphin, Looy the Seventeen, son of Looy the Sixteen and Mary Antonette." " You ! At your age 1 No 1 Yon mean you're the late Charlemagne ; you must be nix or ssven hundred years old, at the very least." *

" Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done it; trouble has brung these gray hairs and this premature baltitnde. Yes, gentlemen, you see before you, in blue jeans and misery, the wanderin', exiled, trampledon, nnd sufferin' rightful King of France." Well, he cried and took on so, that me and Jim didn't know hardly what to do, we was so sorry— and so glad and proud we'd got him with us, too. So we set in, like we done before with the duke, and tried to comfort him. But he said it warn't no use, nothing but to be dead and done with it all could do him any good ; though be said it often made him feel easier and better for a while if people treated him according to his rights, and got down on one knee to speak to him, and always called him " You* Majesty," and waited on him first at meals, and didn't sit down in his presence till he asked them. So Jim and me set to rnajestying him, and doing this and that and t'other for him, and standing up till he told us we might set down. This done him heaps of good, and so he got cheerful and comfortable. Bat the duke kind of soured on him, and didn't look a bit satisfied with the way things was going; still, the king acted real friendly towards him, and said the duke's grret-grandfatber and all the other Dukes of BiJgewater was a good deal thought of by his father, and was allowed to come to the palace considerable ; but the duke staid huffy a good while, till by-and-by the king Bays :—: — "Like as not wa got to be together a blamed long time, on this h-yer raft, Bilgewater, and so what's the use o' your bein' sour ? It'll only make things onoomfortable. It ain't my fault. I waxn't born a duke, it ain't yonr fault you warn't horn a king — so what's the use to worry ? Make the best o' things the way you find 'em, says I — that's my motto. This ain't no bad thing that we've struck here— plenty grub and an easy life— oome, give us your hand, Duke, and less all be friends." The duke done It, and Jim and me was pretty glad to see it. It took away ail the unoomfortablenees, and we felt mighty good over it, beoause it would a been a miserable business to have any unfriendliness on the raft ; for what you want, above all things, on a raft, is for everybody to be satisfied, and feel right and kind towards the others. (To be continued.)