hard to git and you go and beg off for me with the widder.
Oh, Huck, you know I can t do that. Tain t fair; and besides if you ll
try this thing just a while longer you ll come to like it.
Like it! Yes the way I d like a hot stove if I was to set on it long
enough. No, Tom, I won t be rich, and I won t live in them cussed
smothery houses. I like the woods, and the river, and hogsheads, and
I ll stick to em, too. Blame it all! just as we d got guns, and a cave,
and all just fixed to rob, here this dern foolishness has got to come up
and spile it all!
Tom saw his opportunity
Lookyhere, Huck, being rich ain t going to keep me back from turning
robber.
No! Oh, good-licks; are you in real dead-wood earnest, Tom?
Just as dead earnest as I m sitting here. But Huck, we can t let you
into the gang if you ain t respectable, you know.
Huck s joy was quenched.
Can t let me in, Tom? Didn t you let me go for a pirate?
Yes, but that s different. A robber is more high-toned than what a
pirate is as a general thing. In most countries they re awful high up in
the nobility dukes and such.
Now, Tom, hain t you always ben friendly to me? You wouldn t shet me
out, would you, Tom? You wouldn t do that, now, _would_ you, Tom?
Huck, I wouldn t want to, and I _don t_ want to but what would people
say? Why, they d say, Mph! Tom Sawyer s Gang! pretty low characters in
it! They d mean you, Huck. You wouldn t like that, and I wouldn t.
Huck was silent for some time, engaged in a mental struggle. Finally he
said:
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