“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.”