MINERVA

the very first man I see when I got there was the duke. He was sticking up a bill for the Royal Nonesuch—three-night performance—like that other time. _They_ had the cheek, them frauds! I was right on him before I could shirk. He looked astonished, and says: “Hel-_lo!_ Where’d _you_ come from?” Then he says, kind of glad and eager, “Where’s the raft?—got her in a good place?” I says: “Why, that’s just what I was going to ask your grace.” Then he didn’t look so joyful, and says: “What was your idea for asking _me?_” he says. “Well,” I says, “when I see the king in that doggery yesterday I says to myself, we can’t get him home for hours, till he’s soberer; so I went a-loafing around town to put in the time and wait. A man up and offered me ten cents to help him pull a skiff over the river and back to fetch a sheep, and so I went along; but when we was dragging him to the boat, and the man left me a-holt of the rope and went behind him to shove him along, he was too strong for me and jerked loose and run, and we after him. We didn’t have no dog, and so we had to chase him all over the country till we tired him out. We never got him till dark; then we fetched him over, and I started down for the raft. When I got there and see it was gone, I says to myself, ‘they’ve got into trouble and had to leave; and they’ve took my nigger, which is the only nigger I’ve got in the world, and now I’m in a strange country, and ain’t got no property no more, nor nothing, and no way to make my living;’ so I set down and cried. I slept in the woods all night. But what _did_ become of the raft, then?—and Jim—poor Jim!” “Blamed if _I_ know—that is, what’s become of the raft. That old fool had made a trade and got forty dollars, and when we found him in the doggery the loafers had matched half-dollars with him and got every cent but what he’d spent for whisky; and when I got him home late last night and found the raft gone, we said, ‘That little rascal has stole our raft and shook us, and run off down the river.’” “I wouldn’t shake my _nigger_, would I?—the only nigger I had in the world, and the only property.” “We never thought of that. Fact is, I reckon we’d come to consider him _our_ nigger; yes, we did consider him so—goodness knows we had trouble enough for him. So when we see the raft was gone and we flat broke, there warn’t anything for it but to try the Royal Nonesuch another shake. And I’ve pegged along ever since, dry as a powder-horn. Where’s that ten cents? Give it here.” I had considerable money, so I give him ten cents, but begged him to spend it for something to eat, and give me some, because it was all the money I had, and I hadn’t had nothing to eat since yesterday. He never said nothing. The next minute he whirls on me and says: “Do you reckon that nigger would blow on us? We’d skin him if he done that!” “How can he blow? Hain’t he run off?” “No! That old fool sold him, and never divided with me, and the money’s gone.” “_Sold_ him?” I says, and begun to cry; “why, he was _my_ nigger, and that was my money. Where is he?—I want my nigger.” “Well, you can’t _get_ your nigger, that’s all—so dry up your blubbering. Looky here—do you think _you’d_ venture to blow on us? Blamed if I think I’d trust you. Why, if you _was_ to blow on us—” He stopped, but I never see the duke look so ugly out of his eyes before. I went on a-whimpering, and says: “I don’t want to b