up, and have it all to yourself."

"Wait jest a minute, duke--answer me this one question, honest and fair;
if you didn't put the money there, say it, and I'll b'lieve you, and take
back everything I said."

"You old scoundrel, I didn't, and you know I didn't. There, now!"

"Well, then, I b'lieve you. But answer me only jest this one more--now
DON'T git mad; didn't you have it in your mind to hook the money and hide
it?"

The duke never said nothing for a little bit; then he says:

"Well, I don't care if I DID, I didn't DO it, anyway. But you not only
had it in mind to do it, but you DONE it."

"I wisht I never die if I done it, duke, and that's honest. I won't say
I warn't goin' to do it, because I WAS; but you--I mean somebody--got in
ahead o' me."

"It's a lie! You done it, and you got to SAY you done it, or--"

The king began to gurgle, and then he gasps out:

"'Nough!--I OWN UP!"

I was very glad to hear him say that; it made me feel much more easier
than what I was feeling before. So the duke took his hands off and says:

"If you ever deny it again I'll drown you. It's WELL for you to set
there and blubber like a baby--it's fitten for you, after the way you've
acted. I never see such an old ostrich for wanting to gobble everything
--and I a-trusting you all the time, like you was my own father. You ought
to been ashamed of yourself to stand by and hear it saddled on to a lot
of poor niggers, and you never say a word for 'em. It makes me feel
ridiculous to think I was soft enough to BELIEVE that rubbage. Cuss you,
I can see now why you was so anxious to make up the deffisit--you wanted
to get what money I'd got out of the Nonesuch and one thing or another,
and scoop it ALL!"

The king says, timid, and still a-snuffling:

"Why, duke, it was you that said make up the deffisit; it warn't me."

"Dry up! I don't want to hear no more out of you!" says the duke. "And
NOW you see what you GOT by it. They've got all their own money back,
and all of OURN but a shekel or two BESIDES. G'long to bed, and don't
you deffersit ME no more deffersits, long 's YOU live!"

So the king sneaked into the wigwam and took to his bottle for comfort,
and before long the duke tackled HIS bottle; and so in about a half an
hour they was as thick as thieves again, and the tighter they got the
lovinger they got, and went off a-snoring in each other's arms. They
both got powerful mellow, but I noticed the king did