om Sawyer, and he said it was the orneriest, low-downest
thing he ever heard of. But Jake Dunlap said it warn't unusual in the
profession. Said when a person was in that line of business he'd got to
look out for his own intrust, there warn't nobody else going to do it
for him. And then he went on. He says:

"You see, the trouble was, you couldn't divide up two di'monds amongst
three. If there'd been three--But never mind about that, there warn't
three. I loafed along the back streets studying and studying. And I says
to myself, I'll hog them di'monds the first chance I get, and I'll have
a disguise all ready, and I'll give the boys the slip, and when I'm safe
away I'll 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, I'll 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, can't you, you're only just hendering all
you can. What WAS it he bought, Jake?"

"You'd 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?"

"That's 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 he's got on now, as you've 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 di'monds and
went aboard the boat.

"But now we was up a stump, for we couldn't go to bed. We had to set up
and watch one another. Pity, that was; pity to put that kind of a strain
on us, because there was bad blood between us from a couple of weeks
back, and we was only friends in the way of business. Bad anyway, seeing
there was only two di'monds betwixt three men. First we had supper, and
then tramped up and down the deck together smoking till mos