Tom Sawyer Detective | Page 7

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 don't keep mum
yourself there's going to be a little bit of a risk--it ain't much, maybe, but it's a little. I
mean, if you talk, won't people notice that your voice is just like Jubiter's; and mightn't 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, "you're a sharp one! You're perfectly right. I've got to play deef
and dumb when there's a neighbor around. If I'd a struck for home and forgot that little
detail--However, I wasn't 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 t'other 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 warn't 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 warn't satisfied; we warn't 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, that's one of them! They're 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:
"That's him!--that's the other one. If it would only come a good black stormy night and I
could get ashore. You see, they've got spies on me. They've 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 di'monds 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
di'monds 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 wasn't 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 don't reckon the julery people know they've been robbed yet. But it
wouldn't be good sense to stay around St. Louis, of course, so we considered where we'd
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 di'monds 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