And then he had
fetched away a three-gallon jug of whisky, too, that he found under a
wagon when he was starting home through the woods. The king said, take
it all around, it laid over any day he'd ever put in in the missionarying
line. He said it warn't no use talking, heathens don't amount to shucks
alongside of pirates to work a camp-meeting with.
The duke was thinking HE'D been doing pretty well till the king come to
show up, but after that he didn't think so so much. He had set up and
printed off two little jobs for farmers in that printing-office--horse
bills--and took the money, four dollars. And he had got in ten
dollars' worth of advertisements for the paper, which he said he would
put in for four dollars if they would pay in advance--so they done it.
The price of the paper was two dollars a year, but he took in three
subscriptions for half a dollar apiece on condition of them paying him in
advance; they were going to pay in cordwood and onions as usual, but he
said he had just bought the concern and knocked down the price as low as
he could afford it, and was going to run it for cash. He set up a little
piece of poetry, which he made, himself, out of his own head--three
verses--kind of sweet and saddish--the name of it was, "Yes, crush, cold
world, this breaking heart"--and he left that all set up and ready to
print in the paper, and didn't charge nothing for it. Well, he took in
nine dollars and a half, and said he'd done a pretty square day's work
for it.
Then he showed us another little job he'd printed and hadn't charged for,
because it was for us. It had a picture of a runaway nigger with a
bundle on a stick over his shoulder, and "$200 reward" under it. The
reading was all about Jim, and just described him to a dot. It said he
run away from St. Jacques' plantation, forty mile below New Orleans, last
winter, and likely went north, and whoever would catch him and send him
back he could have the reward and expenses.
"Now," says the duke, "after to-night we can run in the daytime if we
want to. Whenever we see anybody coming we can tie Jim hand and foot
with a rope, and lay him in the wigwam and show this handbill and say we
captured him up the river, and were too poor to travel on a steamboat, so
we got this little raft on credit from our friends and are going down to
get the reward. Handcuffs and chains would look still better on Jim, but
it wouldn't go well with the story of us being so
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