Huckleberry Finn by Dave Mckay, Mark Twain (recommended books to read TXT) 📕

Well, all through the circus they done the most surprising things; and all the time that clown carried on so it most killed the people. The man with the whip couldn’t ever say a word to him but he was back at him fast as lightning with the funniest things a body ever said; and how he ever could think of so many of them, and so quickly and so perfectly, was what I couldn’t no way understand. Why, I couldn’t a thought of them in a year. And by and by a drunk man tried to get into the circle -- said he wanted to ride; said he could ride as well as anyone. They argued and tried to keep him out, but he wouldn’t listen, and the whole show come to a stop. The people started to shout at him and make fun of him, and that made him angry, and he started to shout back; so that made the people more angry, and a lot of men started to come down off the benches and crowd toward the circle, saying, “Knock him down! throw him out!” One or two women started to cry out. So, then, the man with the whip he gave a little talk, and said he hoped there wouldn’t be no trouble, and if the man would promise to make no more trouble he would let him ride if he thought he could stay on. So everybody laughed and said all right, and the man got on.

The minute he was on, the horse started to jump and throw itself around, with two circus men hanging on to its ropes trying to hold him, and the drunk man hanging on to its neck, and its heels flying in the air every jump, and the whole crowd of people standing up shouting and laughing until tears come down. At last, sure enough, after all the circus men could do, the horse broke loose, and away he went like he was crazy, around and around the circle, with that poor drunk man lying down on him and hang- ing to his neck, with first one leg hanging almost to the ground on one side, and then t’other one on t’other side, and the people just went crazy. But it weren’t funny to me; I was shaking all over to see his danger. But pretty soon he got himself up to sitting on the horse and he took a hold of the ropes, a-leaning this way and that; and the next minute he jumped up and dropped the rope and stood! and the horse a-going like a house on fire too. He just stood up there, a- sailing around as easy and comfortable as if he weren’t ever drunk in his life -- and then he started to pull off his clothes and throw them. He took them off so thick they kind of filled the air, and in the end he took off seventeen suits.

And, then, there he was, thin and good looking, and dressed the prettiest you ever saw, and he made that horse almost fly -- and in the end he jumped off, and made his bow and danced off to the dressing-room, and everybody just a-shouting with happiness and surprise.

Then the man with the whip he see how he had been tricked. Why, it was one of his own men who had got up that joke all out of his own head, and never let on to nobody. Well, I felt embarrassed enough to be took in so, but I wouldn’t a been in that whip man’s place, not for a thousand dollars. There may be better circuses than what that one was, but I never seen them yet. Anyway, it was more than good enough for me; and wherever I run across it, it can have all of my business every time.

Well, that night we had our show; but there weren’t only about twelve people there -- just enough to pay costs. And they laughed all the time, and that made the duke angry; and everybody but one boy who was asleep left before the show was over. So the duke said these Arkansas timber heads couldn’t come up to Shakespeare; what they wanted was low laughs -- and maybe something even worse than low laughs, he thought. He said he could size their way of thinking. So next morning he got some big pieces of paper and some black paint, and made some signs and put them up all over the village.

The signs said:

AT THE COURT HOUSE!

FOR 3 NIGHTS ONLY!

The Well known actors

DAVID GARRICK THE YOUNGER!

And

EDMUND KEAN THE OLDER!

Of the London and Haymarket Theatres,

In

THE KING’S FOOLISHNESS ! ! !

50 cents to get in

Then at the bottom was the biggest line of all, which said:

WOMEN AND CHILDREN CANNOT COME IN.

“There,” says he, “if that line don’t bring them, I don’t know Arkansas!”

Chapter 23

Well, all day him and the king was hard at it, putting up a stage and a curtain and a line of candles for foot lights; and that night the house was full of men in no time. When the place couldn’t hold no more, the duke he quit working on the door and went around the back and come up onto the stage and stood up before the curtain and gave a little talk about how good the show was going to be, and said it was the most wild one that ever was; and so he went on a-talking about how good it was, and about Edmund Kean the Older, who was to play the most important part in it; and at last when he’d got everybody’s interest up high enough, he pushed up the curtain, and the next minute the king come a-walking out on all fours, without any clothes on; and he was painted all over in stripes, all kinds of colours, as beautiful as a rainbow. And -- but I won’t talk about the other things he had on; it was just wild, but it was awful funny. The people almost killed themselves laughing; and when the king got finished dancing around and walked off behind the scenes, they shouted and clapped and stormed and laughed until he come back and done it over again, and after that they made him do it another time. Well, it would make a cow laugh to see the things that old man did.

Then the duke he lets the curtain down, and bows to the people, and says the great show will be done only two nights more, because of big shows waiting for them in London, where people have already paid to see it in Drury Lane; and then he makes them another bow, and says if he has made them happy and taught them something about Shakespeare, he will be deeply thankful if they will talk about it to their friends and get them to come and see it.

Twenty people sings out: “What, is it over? Is that all?”

The duke says yes. Then there was an interesting time. Everybody sings out, “You tricked us!” and gets up angry, and was a-going for that stage and them actors. But a big, nice looking man jumps up on a bench and shouts: “Hold on! Just a word, men.”

They stopped to listen. “We were tricked -- mighty badly tricked. But we don’t want the whole town laughing at us. We'd never hear the last of this thing as long as we live. No. What we want is to go out of here quiet, and talk this show up, and sell the others in town! Then we’ll all be in the same boat. Ain’t that smart?” (“True, it is! The judge is right!” everybody sings out.) “All right, then, not a word about any trick. Go along home, and tell everybody to come and see the show.”

Next day you couldn’t hear nothing around town but how good the show was. House was filled again that night, and we tricked this crowd the same way. When me and the king and the duke got home to the raft we all had a meal; and by and by, about midnight, they made Jim and me back her out and move her down the middle of the river, and bring her in and hide her about two miles below town.

The third night the house was filled again -- and they weren’t new ones this time, but people that was at the show the other two nights. I stood by the duke at the door, and I see that every man that went in had his pockets full, or something pushed up under his coat -- and I see it weren’t nice smells either, not by a long way. I could smell sick eggs by the barrel, and very old cabbages, and such things; and if I know the signs of a dead cat being around, and I think I do, there was sixty-four of them went in. I pushed in there for a minute, but it was too strange for me; I couldn’t take it.

Well, when the place couldn’t hold no more the duke he give a man a coin and told him to work the door for him a minute, and then he started around for the stage door, with me after him; but the minute we turned the corner and was in the dark he says: “Walk fast now until you get away from the houses, and then run for the raft like the devil was after you!”

I done it, and he done the same. We reached the raft at the same time, and in less than two seconds we was going down the river, all dark and quiet, and moving toward the middle of the river, nobody saying a word.

I thought the poor king was in for a bad time of it with the crowd, but none of that; pretty soon he comes out from under the tent, and says: “Well, how’d the old thing work out this time, duke?” He hadn’t been up to town at all.

We never showed a light until we was about ten miles below the village. Then we put the light up and had a meal, and the king and the duke almost laughed their bones loose over the way they’d served them people.

The duke says: “What stupid people! I knew the first house would keep quiet and let the others get pulled in; and I knew they’d go for us the third night, and think it was their turn now. Well, it is their turn, and they can turn it into a party if they want -- they brought enough food for it.”

Them two took in four hundred and sixty-five dollars in those three nights. I never see money pulled in by the wagon full like that before.

By and by, when they was asleep and snoring, Jim says: “Don’t it surprise you de way dem kings carries on, Huck?”

“No,” I says, “it don’t.”

“Why don’t it, Huck?”

“Because it’s in the blood. I think they’re all the same.”

“But, Huck, dese kings of ours is like robbers; dat’s just what dey is; dey’s robbers.”

“Well, that’s what I’m a-saying; all kings is mostly robbers, as far as I can make out.”

“Is dat so?”

“You read about them once -- you’ll see. Look at Henry the Eight; this one is a Sunday-school teacher to him. And look at Charles Second, and Louis Fourteen, and Louis Fifteen, and James Second, and Edward Second, and Richard Third, and forty more; they all used to run around so in old times and make like hell. My, you should a seen old Henry the Eight when he was at his best. He was a flower. He used to marry a new wife every day, and cut off her head next morning. And he would do it just as easy