say, ’Mph! Tom Sawyer’s Gang! pretty low characters in it!’ They’d mean you, Huck. You wouldn’t like that, and I wouldn’t.”

Huck was silent for some time, engaged in a mental struggle. Finally he said:

“Well, I’ll go back to the widder for a month and tackle it and see if I can come to stand it, if you’ll let me b’long to the gang, Tom.”

“All right, Huck, it’s a whiz!

Come along, old chap, and I’ll ask the widow to let up on you a little, Huck.”

“Will you, Tom — now will you? That’s good. If she’ll let up on some of the roughest things, I’ll smoke private and cuss private, and crowd through or bust. When you going to start the gang and turn robbers?”