cted.

During Jimmy Finn's term he (Jimmy) was not exclusive; he was not
finical; he was not hypercritical; he was largely and handsomely
democratic--and slept in the deserted tan-yard with the hogs. My father
tried to reform him once, but did not succeed. My father was not a
professional reformer. In him the spirit of reform was spasmodic. It
only broke out now and then, with considerable intervals between. Once
he tried to reform Injun Joe. That also was a failure. It was a failure,
and we boys were glad. For Injun Joe, drunk, was interesting and a
benefaction to us, but Injun Joe, sober, was a dreary spectacle. We
watched my father's experiments upon him with a good deal of anxiety,
but it came out all right and we were satisfied. Injun Joe got drunk
oftener than before, and became intolerably interesting.

I think that in "Tom Sawyer" I starved Injun Joe to death in the cave.
But that may have been to meet the exigencies of romantic literature. I
can't remember now whether the real Injun Joe died in the cave or out of
it, but I do remember that the news of his death reached me at a most
unhappy time--that is to say, just at bedtime on a summer night when a
prodigious storm of thunder and lightning accompanied by a deluging rain
that turned the streets and lanes into rivers, caused me to repent and
resolve to lead a better life. I can remember those awful thunder-bursts
and the white glare of the lightning yet, and the wild lashing of the
rain against the window-panes. By my teachings I perfectly well knew
what all that wild riot was for--Satan had come to get Injun Joe. I had
no shadow of doubt about it. It was the proper thing when a person like
Injun Joe was required in the under world, and I should have thought it
strange and unaccountable if Satan had come for him in a less impressive
way. With every glare of lightning I shrivelled and shrunk together in
mortal terror, and in the interval of black darkness that followed I
poured out my lamentings over my lost condition, and my supplications
for just one more chance, with an energy and feeling and sincerity quite
foreign to my nature.

But in the morning I saw that it was a false alarm and concluded to
resume business at the old stand and wait for another reminder.

The axiom says "History repeats itself." A week or two ago Mr.
Blank-Blank dined with us. At dinner he mentioned a circumstance which
flashed me back over about sixty years and landed me in that li