The Portable Mark Twain (48 page)

Then Mary Jane she fetched the letter her father left behind, and the king he read it out loud and cried over it. It give the dwelling-house and three thousand dollars, gold, to the girls; and it give the tanyard (which was doing a good business), along with some other houses and land (worth about seven thousand), and three thousand dollars in gold to Harvey and William, and told where the six thousand cash was hid, down cellar. So these two frauds said they'd go and fetch it up, and have everything square and above-board; and told me to come with a candle. We shut the cellar door behind us, and when they found the bag they spilt it out on the floor, and it was a lovely sight, all them yaller-boys. My, the way the king's eyes did shine! He slaps the duke on the shoulder, and says:

“Oh,
this
ain't bully, nor noth'n! Oh, no, I reckon not! Why, Biljy, it beats the Nonesuch,
don't
it!”

The duke allowed it did. They pawed the yaller-boys, and sifted them through their fingers and let them jingle down on the floor; and the king says:

“It ain't no use talkin'; bein' brothers to a rich dead man, and representatives of furrin heirs that's got left, is the line for you and me, Bilge. Thish-yer comes of trust'n to Providence. It's the best way, in the long run. I've tried 'em all, and ther' ain't no better way.”

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:

“Dern him, I wonder what he done with that four hundred and fifteen dollars?”

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

“Well, he was a pretty sick man, and likely he made a mistake—I reckon that's the way of it. The best way's to let it go, and keep still about it. We can spare it.”

“Oh, shucks, yes, we can
spare
it. I don't k'yer noth'n 'bout that—it's the
count
I'm thinkin' about. We want to be awful square and open and aboveboard, here, you know. We want to lug this h-yer money up stairs and count it before everybody—then there' ain't noth'n suspicious. But when the dead man says ther's six thous'n dollars, you know, we don't want to—”

“Hold on,” says the duke. “Less make up the deffisit”—and he begun to haul out yaller-boys out of his pocket.

“It's a most amaz'n' good idea, duke—you
have
got a rattlin' clever head on you,” says the king. “Blest if the old None-such ain't a heppin' us out agin”—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.

“Say,” says the duke, “I got another idea. Le's go up stairs and count this money, and then take and
give it to the girls.
”

“Good land, duke, lemme hug you! It's the most dazzling idea 'at ever a man struck. You have cert'nly got the most astonishin' head I ever see. Oh, this is the boss dodge, ther' ain't no mistake 'bout it. Let 'em fetch along their suspicions now, if they want to—this'll lay 'em out.”

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 pile—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:

“Friends all, my poor brother that lays yonder, has done generous by them that's left behind in the vale of sorrers. He has done generous by these-yer poor little lambs that he loved and sheltered, and that's left fatherless and motherless. Yes, and we that knowed him, knows that he would a done
more
generous by 'em if he hadn't ben afeard o' woundin' his dear William and me. Now,
wouldn't
he? Ther' ain't no question 'bout it, in
my
mind. Well, then—what kind o' brothers would it be, that'd stand in his way at sech a time? And what kind o' uncles would it be that'd rob—yes,
rob
—sech poor sweet lambs as these 'at he loved so, at sech a time? If I know William—and I
think
I do—he—well, I'll jest ask him.” 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, “I knowed it; I reckon
that
'll convince anybody the way
he
feels about it. Here, Mary Jane, Susan, Joanner, take the money—take it
all.
It's the gift of him that lays yonder, cold but joyful.”

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:

“You
dear
good souls!—how
lovely!
—how
could
you!”

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 saying—in the middle of something he'd started in on—

“—they bein' partickler friends o' the diseased. That's why they're invited here this evenin'; but to-morrow we want
all
to come—everybody; for he respected everybody, he liked everybody, and so it's fittin that his funeral orgies h'd be public.”

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 couldn't stand it no more; so he writes on a little scrap of paper, “
obsequies,
you old fool,” and folds it up and goes too goo-gooing and reaching it over people's heads to him. The king he reads it, and puts it in his pocket, and says:

“Poor William, afflicted as he is, his
heart's
aluz right. Asks me to invite everybody to come to the funeral—wants me to make 'em all welcome. But he needn't a worried—it was jest what I was at.”

Then he weaves along again, perfectly ca'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:

“I say orgies, not because it's the common term, because it ain't—obsequies bein' the common term—but because orgies is the right term. Obsequies ain't used in England no more, now—it's gone out. We say orgies now, in England. Orgies is better, because it means the thing you're after, more exact. It's a word that's made up out'n the Greek
orgo,
outside, open, abroad; and the Hebrew
jeesum,
to plant, cover up; hence in
ter.
So, you see, funeral orgies is an open er public funeral.”

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

“Why, Robinson, hain't you heard the news? This is Harvey Wilks.”

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

“
Is
it my poor brother's dear good friend and physician? I—”

“Keep your hands off of me!” says the doctor. “
You
talk like an Englishman—
don't
you? It's the worse imitation I ever heard.
You
Peter Wilks's brother. You're a fraud, that's what you are!”

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'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 Harvey's feelings and the poor girls' feelings, and all that; but it warn't no use, he stormed right along, and said any man that pretended to be an Englishman and couldn'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:

“I was your father's friend, and I'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 impostor—has come here with a lot of empty names and facts which he has 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 out—I
beg
you to do it. Will you?”

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

“
Here
is my answer.” She hove up the bag of money and put it in the king's hands, and says, “Take this six thousand dollars, and invest for me and my sisters any way you want to, and don't give us no receipt for it.”

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:

“All right, I wash
my
hands of the matter. But I warn you all that a time's coming when you're going to feel sick whenever you think of this day”—and away he went.

“All right, doctor,” says the king, kinder mocking him, “we'll try and get 'em to send for you”—which made them all laugh, and they said it was a prime good hit.

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 she'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 valley—meaning me.

So Mary Jane took us up, and she showed them their rooms, which was plain but nice. She said she'd have her frocks and a lot of other traps took out of her room if they was in Uncle Harvey's way, but he said they warn'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 knick-knacks 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 don't disturb them. The duke'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 duke'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 along side of her, and said how bad the biscuits was, and how mean the preserves was, and how ornery and tough the fried chickens was—and all that kind of rot, the way women always do for to force out compliments; and the people all knowed everything was tip-top, and said so—said “How
do
you get biscuits to brown so nice?” and “Where, for the land's sake
did
you get these amaz'n pickles?” and all that kind of humbug talky-talk, just the way people always does at a supper, you know.

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 didn't think the ice was getting mighty thin, sometimes. She says:

“Did you ever see the king?”

“Who? William Fourth? Well, I bet I have—he goes to our church.” I knowed he was dead years ago, but I never let on. So when I says he goes to our church, she says:

“What—regular?”

“Yes—regular. His pew's right over opposite ourn—on 'tother side the pulpit.”

“I thought he lived in London?”

“Well, he does. Where
would
he live?”

“But I thought
you
lived in Sheffield?”

I see I was up a stump. I had to let on to get choked with a chicken bone, so as to get time to think how to get down again. Then I says:

“I mean he goes to our church regular when he's in Sheffield. That's only in the summer-time, when he comes there to take the sea baths.”

“Why, how you talk—Sheffield ain't on the sea.”

“Well, who said it was?”

“Why, you did.”

“I
didn't,
nuther.”

“You did!”

“I didn't.”

“You did.”

“I never said nothing of the kind.”

“Well, what
did
you say, then?”

“Said he come to take the sea
baths
—that's what I said.”

“Well, then! how's he going to take the sea baths if it ain't on the sea?”

“Looky here,” I says; “did you ever see any Congress water?”

“Yes.”

“Well, did you have to go to Congress to get it?”