e water, so as to be comfortable, and lit his pipe,
and went to getting his "Romeo and Juliet" by heart. When he had got
it pretty good him and the duke begun to practise it together. The
duke had to learn him over and over again how to say every speech; and
he made him sigh, and put his hand on his heart, and after a while he
said he done it pretty well; "only," he says, "you mustn't bellow out
_Romeo!_ that way, like a bull--you must say it soft and sick and
languishy, so--R-o-o-meo! that is the idea; for Juliet's a dear sweet
mere child of a girl, you know, and she doesn't bray like a jackass."

Well, next they got out a couple of long swords that the duke made out
of oak laths, and begun to practise the sword-fight--the duke called
himself Richard III.; and the way they laid on and pranced around the
raft was grand to see. But by and by the king tripped and fell
overboard, and after that they took a rest, and had a talk about all
kinds of adventures they'd had in other times along the river.

After dinner the duke says:

"Well, Capet, we'll want to make this a first-class show, you know, so
I guess we'll add a little more to it. We want a little something to
answer encores with, anyway."

"What's onkores, Bilgewater?"

The duke told him, and then says:

"I'll answer by doing the Highland fling or the sailor's hornpipe; and
you--well, let me see--oh, I've got it--you can do Hamlet's
soliloquy."

"Hamlet's which?"

"Hamlet's soliloquy, you know; the most celebrated thing in
Shakespeare. Ah, it's sublime, sublime! Always fetches the house. I
haven't got it in the book--I've only got one volume--but I reckon I
can piece it out from memory. I'll just walk up and down a minute, and
see if I can call it back from recollection's vaults."

So he went to marching up and down, thinking, and frowning horrible
every now and then; then he would hoist up his eyebrows; next he would
squeeze his hand on his forehead and stagger back and kind of moan;
next he would sigh, and next he'd let on to drop a tear. It was
beautiful to see him. By and by he got it. He told us to give
attention. Then he strikes a most noble attitude, with one leg shoved
forwards, and his arms stretched away up, and his head tilted back,
looking up at the sky; and then he begins to rip and rave and grit his
teeth; and after that, all through his speech, he howled, and spread
around, and swelled up his chest, and just knocked the spots out of
any act