'bout the middle of the day."

"Well, it's all terrible sad; but we've all got to go, one time or
another. So what we want to do is to be prepared; then we're all right."

"Yes, sir, it's the best way. Ma used to always say that."

When we struck the boat she was about done loading, and pretty soon she
got off. The king never said nothing about going aboard, so I lost my
ride, after all. When the boat was gone the king made me paddle up
another mile to a lonesome place, and then he got ashore and says:

"Now hustle back, right off, and fetch the duke up here, and the new
carpet-bags. And if he's gone over to t'other side, go over there and
git him. And tell him to git himself up regardless. Shove along, now."

I see what HE was up to; but I never said nothing, of course. When I got
back with the duke we hid the canoe, and then they set down on a log, and
the king told him everything, just like the young fellow had said it
--every last word of it. And all the time he was a-doing it he tried to
talk like an Englishman; and he done it pretty well, too, for a slouch.
I can't imitate him, and so I ain't a-going to try to; but he really done
it pretty good. Then he says:

"How are you on the deef and dumb, Bilgewater?"

The duke said, leave him alone for that; said he had played a deef and
dumb person on the histronic boards. So then they waited for a
steamboat.

About the middle of the afternoon a couple of little boats come along,
but they didn't come from high enough up the river; but at last there was
a big one, and they hailed her. She sent out her yawl, and we went
aboard, and she was from Cincinnati; and when they found we only wanted
to go four or five mile they was booming mad, and gave us a cussing, and
said they wouldn't land us. But the king was ca'm. He says:

"If gentlemen kin afford to pay a dollar a mile apiece to be took on and
put off in a yawl, a steamboat kin afford to carry 'em, can't it?"

So they softened down and said it was all right; and when we got to the
village they yawled us ashore. About two dozen men flocked down when
they see the yawl a-coming, and when the king says:

"Kin any of you gentlemen tell me wher' Mr. Peter Wilks lives?" they give
a glance at one another, and nodded their heads, as much as to say, "What
d' I tell you?" Then one of them says, kind of soft and gentle:

"I'm sorry sir, but the best we can do is to tell you where he DID live
yesterday evening.