Chapter 24

CHAPTER XXIV.

NEXT day, towards night, we laid up under a little
willow towhead out in the middle, where there
was a village on each side of the river, and the duke
and the king begun to lay out a plan for working them
towns. Jim he spoke to the duke, and said he hoped
it wouldn't take but a few hours, because it got mighty
heavy and tiresome to him when he had to lay all day
in the wigwam tied with the rope. You see, when we
left him all alone we had to tie him, because if any-
body happened on to him all by himself and not tied
it wouldn't look much like he was a runaway nigger,
you know. So the duke said it WAS kind of hard to
have to lay roped all day, and he'd cipher out some
way to get around it.

He was uncommon bright, the duke was, and he
soon struck it. He dressed Jim up in King Lear's
outfit -- it was a long curtain-calico gown, and a white
horse-hair wig and whiskers; and then he took his
theater paint and painted Jim's face and hands and
ears and neck all over a dead, dull, solid blue, like a
man that's been drownded nine days. Blamed if he
warn't the horriblest looking outrage I ever see. Then
the duke took and wrote out a sign on a shingle so:

Sick Arab -- but harmless when not out of his head.

And he nailed that shingle to a lath, and stood the
lath up four or five foot in front of the wigwam. Jim
was satisfied. He said it was a sight better than lying
tied a couple of years every day, and trembling all
over every time there was a sound. The duke told
him to make himself free and easy, and if anybody
ever come meddling around, he must hop out of the
wigwam, and carry on a little, and fetch a howl or two
like a wild beast, and he reckoned they would light out
and leave him alone. Which was sound enough judg-
ment; but you take the average man, and he wouldn't
wait for him to howl. Why, he didn't only look like
he was dead, he looked considerable more than that.

These rapscallions wanted to try the Nonesuch again,
because there was so much money in it, but they
judged it wouldn't be safe, because maybe the news
might a worked along down by this time. They
couldn't hit no project that suited exactly; so at last
the duke said he reckoned he'd lay off and work his
brains an hour or two and see if he couldn't put up
something on the Arkansaw village; and the king he
allowed he would drop over to t'other village without
any plan, but just trust in Providence to lead him the
profitable way -- meaning the devil, I reckon. We
had all bought store clothes where we stopped last;
and now the king put his'n on, and he told me to put
mine on. I done it, of course. The king's duds was
all black, and he did look real