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"I dono. But they've got to do it. Hermits always do. You'd have to do that if you was a hermit."

"Dern'd if I would," said Huck.

"Well, what would you do?"

"I dono. But I wouldn't do that."

"Why, Huck, you'd have to. How'd you get around it?"

"Why, I just wouldn't stand it. I'd run away."

"Run away! Well, you would be a nice old slouch of a hermit. You'd be a disgrace."

The Red-Handed made no response, being better employed.

He had finished gouging out a cob, and now he fitted a weed stem to it, loaded it with tobacco, and was pressing a coal to the charge and blowing a cloud of fragrant smoke-he was in the full bloom of luxurious contentment.

The other pirates envied him this majestic vice, and secretly resolved to acquire it shortly.

Presently Huck said:

"What does pirates have to do?"

Tom said:

"Oh, they have just a bully time-take ships and burn them, and get the money and bury it in awful places in their island where there's ghosts and things to watch it, and kill everybody in the ships-make 'em walk a plank."

"And they carry the women to the island," said Joe; "they don't kill the women."

"No," assented Tom, "they don't kill the women-they're too noble. And the women's always beautiful, too.

"And don't they wear the bulliest clothes! Oh no! All gold and silver and di'monds," said Joe, with enthusiasm.

"Who?" said Huck.

"Why, the pirates."

Huck scanned his own clothing forlornly.

"I reckon I ain't dressed fitten for a pirate," said he, with a regretful pathos in his voice; "but I ain't got none but these."

But the other boys told him the fine clothes would come fast enough, after they should have begun their adventures. They made him understand that his poor rags would do to begin with, though it was customary for wealthy pirates to start with a proper wardrobe.

Gradually their talk died out and drowsiness began to steal upon the eyelids of the little waifs.

The pipe dropped from the fingers of the Red-Handed, and he slept the sleep of the conscience-free and the weary.

The Terror of the Seas and the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main had more difficulty in getting to sleep.

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