ll, the first I knowed the king got a-going, and you could hear him
over everybody; and next he went a-charging up on to the platform, and
the preacher he begged him to speak to the people, and he done it. He
told them he was a pirate--been a pirate for thirty years out in the
Indian Ocean--and his crew was thinned out considerable last spring in
a fight, and he was home now to take out some fresh men, and thanks to
goodness he'd been robbed last night and put ashore off of a steamboat
without a cent, and he was glad of it; it was the blessedest thing that
ever happened to him, because he was a changed man now, and happy for the
first time in his life; and, poor as he was, he was going to start right
off and work his way back to the Indian Ocean, and put in the rest of his
life trying to turn the pirates into the true path; for he could do it
better than anybody else, being acquainted with all pirate crews in that
ocean; and though it would take him a long time to get there without
money, he would get there anyway, and every time he convinced a pirate he
would say to him, "Don't you thank me, don't you give me no credit; it
all belongs to them dear people in Pokeville camp-meeting, natural
brothers and benefactors of the race, and that dear preacher there, the
truest friend a pirate ever had!"

And then he busted into tears, and so did everybody. Then somebody sings
out, "Take up a collection for him, take up a collection!" Well, a half
a dozen made a jump to do it, but somebody sings out, "Let HIM pass the
hat around!" Then everybody said it, the preacher too.

So the king went all through the crowd with his hat swabbing his eyes,
and blessing the people and praising them and thanking them for being so
good to the poor pirates away off there; and every little while the
prettiest kind of girls, with the tears running down their cheeks, would
up and ask him would he let them kiss him for to remember him by; and he
always done it; and some of them he hugged and kissed as many as five or
six times--and he was invited to stay a week; and everybody wanted him to
live in their houses, and said they'd think it was an honor; but he said
as this was the last day of the camp-meeting he couldn't do no good, and
besides he was in a sweat to get to the Indian Ocean right off and go to
work on the pirates.

When we got back to the raft and he come to count up he found he had
collected eighty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents.