CHAPTER VI. WELL, pretty soon the old man was up and around again, and then he went for Judge Thatcher in the courts to make him give up that money, and he went for me, too, for not stopping school.  He catched me a couple of times and thrashed me, but I went to school just the same, and dodged him or outrun him most of the time.  I didn't want to go to school much before, but I reckoned... more...

THAT was Tom's great secret—the scheme to return home with his brother pirates and attend their own funerals. They had paddled over to the Missouri shore on a log, at dusk on Saturday, landing five or six miles below the village; they had slept in the woods at the edge of the town till nearly daylight, and had then crept through back lanes and alleys and finished their sleep in the gallery of... more...

CHAPTER I You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary.... more...

A man who is not born with the novel-writing gift has a troublesome time of it when he tries to build a novel. I know this from experience. He has no clear idea of his story; in fact he has no story. He merely has some people in his mind, and an incident or two, also a locality. He knows these people, he knows the selected locality, and he trusts that he can plunge those people into those incidents... more...

CHAPTER XXXI. WE dasn't stop again at any town for days and days; kept right along down the river.  We was down south in the warm weather now, and a mighty long ways from home.  We begun to come to trees with Spanish moss on them, hanging down from the limbs like long, gray beards.  It was the first I ever see it growing, and it made the woods look solemn and dismal.  So now the frauds... more...

Chapter XVIII. The Prince with the tramps. The troop of vagabonds turned out at early dawn, and set forward on their march.  There was a lowering sky overhead, sloppy ground under foot, and a winter chill in the air.  All gaiety was gone from the company; some were sullen and silent, some were irritable and petulant, none were gentle-humoured, all were thirsty. The Ruffler put 'Jack' in... more...

CHAPTER I Scattered here and there through the stacks of unpublished manuscript which constitute this formidable Autobiography and Diary of mine, certain chapters will in some distant future be found which deal with “Claimants”—claimants historically notorious: Satan, Claimant; the Golden Calf, Claimant; the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, Claimant; Louis XVII., Claimant; William Shakespeare,... more...

Chapter XV. Tom as King. The next day the foreign ambassadors came, with their gorgeous trains; and Tom, throned in awful state, received them.  The splendours of the scene delighted his eye and fired his imagination at first, but the audience was long and dreary, and so were most of the addresses—wherefore, what began as a pleasure grew into weariness and home-sickness by-and-by.  Tom said the... more...

Observe, I do not mean to suggest that the custom of lying has suffered any decay or interruption—no, for the Lie, as a Virtue, A Principle, is eternal; the Lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend, is immortal, and cannot perish from the earth while this club remains. My complaint simply concerns the decay of the... more...

Chapter XII. The Prince and his deliverer. As soon as Miles Hendon and the little prince were clear of the mob, they struck down through back lanes and alleys toward the river.  Their way was unobstructed until they approached London Bridge; then they ploughed into the multitude again, Hendon keeping a fast grip upon the Prince's—no, the King's—wrist.  The tremendous news was already... more...