Марк Твен - Tom Sawyer, Detective стр 3.

Because they think you are dead long ago.

No! Are you speaking true?  honor bright, now. He jumped up, excited.

Honor bright. There aint anybody thinks you are alive.

Then Im saved, Im saved, sure! Ill go home. Theyll hide me and save my life. You keep mum. Swear youll keep mum swear youll never, never tell on me. Oh, boys, be good to a poor devil thats being hunted day and night, and dasnt show his face! Ive never done you any harm; Ill never do you any, as God is in the heavens; swear youll be good to me and help me save my life.

Wed a swore it if hed been a dog; and so we done it. Well, he couldnt love us enough for it or be grateful enough, poor cuss; it was all he could do to keep from hugging us.

We talked along, and he got out a little hand-bag and begun to open it, and told us to turn our backs. We done it, and when he told us to turn again he was perfectly different to what he was before. He had on blue goggles and the naturalest-looking long brown whiskers and mustashes you ever see. His own mother wouldnt a knowed him. He asked us if he looked like his brother Jubiter, now.

No, Tom said; there aint anything left thats like him except the long hair.

All right, Ill get that cropped close to my head before I get there; then him and Brace will keep my secret, and Ill live with them as being a stranger, and the neighbors wont ever guess me out. What do you think?

Tom he studied awhile, then he says:

Well, of course me and Huck are going to keep mum there, but if you dont keep mum yourself theres going to be a little bit of a risk it aint much, maybe, but its a little. I mean, if you talk, wont people notice that your voice is just like Jubiters; and mightnt it make them think of the twin they reckoned was dead, but maybe after all was hid all this time under another name?

By George, he says, youre a sharp one! Youre perfectly right. Ive got to play deef and dumb when theres a neighbor around. If Id a struck for home and forgot that little detail However, I wasnt striking for home. I was breaking for any place where I could get away from these fellows that are after me; then I was going to put on this disguise and get some different clothes, and

He jumped for the outside door and laid his ear against it and listened, pale and kind of panting. Presently he whispers:

Sounded like cocking a gun! Lord, what a life to lead!

Then he sunk down in a chair all limp and sick like, and wiped the sweat off of his face.

CHAPTER III. A DIAMOND ROBBERY

FROM that time out, we was with him most all the time, and one or tother of us slept in his upper berth. He said he had been so lonesome, and it was such a comfort to him to have company, and somebody to talk to in his troubles. We was in a sweat to find out what his secret was, but Tom said the best way was not to seem anxious, then likely he would drop into it himself in one of his talks, but if we got to asking questions he would get suspicious and shet up his shell. It turned out just so. It warnt no trouble to see that he WANTED to talk about it, but always along at first he would scare away from it when he got on the very edge of it, and go to talking about something else. The way it come about was this: He got to asking us, kind of indifferent like, about the passengers down on deck. We told him about them. But he warnt satisfied; we warnt particular enough. He told us to describe them better. Tom done it. At last, when Tom was describing one of the roughest and raggedest ones, he gave a shiver and a gasp and says:

Oh, lordy, thats one of them! Theyre aboard sure I just knowed it. I sort of hoped I had got away, but I never believed it. Go on.

Presently when Tom was describing another mangy, rough deck passenger, he give that shiver again and says:

Thats him!  thats the other one. If it would only come a good black stormy night and I could get ashore. You see, theyve got spies on me. Theyve got a right to come up and buy drinks at the bar yonder forrard, and they take that chance to bribe somebody to keep watch on me porter or boots or somebody. If I was to slip ashore without anybody seeing me, they would know it inside of an hour.

So then he got to wandering along, and pretty soon, sure enough, he was telling! He was poking along through his ups and downs, and when he come to that place he went right along. He says:

It was a confidence game. We played it on a julery-shop in St. Louis. What we was after was a couple of noble big dimonds as big as hazel-nuts, which everybody was running to see. We was dressed up fine, and we played it on them in broad daylight. We ordered the dimonds sent to the hotel for us to see if we wanted to buy, and when we was examining them we had paste counterfeits all ready, and THEM was the things that went back to the shop when we said the water wasnt quite fine enough for twelve thousand dollars.

Twelve-thousand-dollars! Tom says. Was they really worth all that money, do you reckon?

Every cent of it.

And you fellows got away with them?

As easy as nothing. I dont reckon the julery people know theyve been robbed yet. But it wouldnt be good sense to stay around St. Louis, of course, so we considered where wed go. One was for going one way, one another, so we throwed up, heads or tails, and the Upper Mississippi won. We done up the dimonds in a paper and put our names on it and put it in the keep of the hotel clerk, and told him not to ever let either of us have it again without the others was on hand to see it done; then we went down town, each by his own self because I reckon maybe we all had the same notion. I dont know for certain, but I reckon maybe we had.

What notion? Tom says.

To rob the others.

What one take everything, after all of you had helped to get it?

Certnly.

It disgusted Tom Sawyer, and he said it was the orneriest, low-downest thing he ever heard of. But Jake Dunlap said it warnt unusual in the profession. Said when a person was in that line of business hed got to look out for his own intrust, there warnt nobody else going to do it for him. And then he went on. He says:

You see, the trouble was, you couldnt divide up two dimonds amongst three. If thered been three But never mind about that, there warnt three. I loafed along the back streets studying and studying. And I says to myself, Ill hog them dimonds the first chance I get, and Ill have a disguise all ready, and Ill give the boys the slip, and when Im safe away Ill put it on, and then let them find me if they can. So I got the false whiskers and the goggles and this countrified suit of clothes, and fetched them along back in a hand-bag; and when I was passing a shop where they sell all sorts of things, I got a glimpse of one of my pals through the window. It was Bud Dixon. I was glad, you bet. I says to myself, Ill see what he buys. So I kept shady, and watched. Now what do you reckon it was he bought?

Whiskers? said I.

No.

Goggles?

No.

Oh, keep still, Huck Finn, cant you, youre only just hendering all you can. What WAS it he bought, Jake?

Youd never guess in the world. It was only just a screwdriver just a wee little bit of a screwdriver.

Well, I declare! What did he want with that?

Thats what I thought. It was curious. It clean stumped me. I says to myself, what can he want with that thing? Well, when he come out I stood back out of sight, and then tracked him to a second-hand slop-shop and see him buy a red flannel shirt and some old ragged clothes just the ones hes got on now, as youve described. Then I went down to the wharf and hid my things aboard the up-river boat that we had picked out, and then started back and had another streak of luck. I seen our other pal lay in HIS stock of old rusty second-handers. We got the dimonds and went aboard the boat.