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 either of us have it again without the others was on hand to see it done; then we went down town, each by his own self—because I reckon maybe we all had the same notion. I don’t know for certain, but I reckon maybe we had.” “What notion?” Tom says. “To rob the others.” “What—one take everything, after all of you had helped to get it?” “Cert’nly.” It disgusted Tom Sawyer, and he said it was the orneriest, low-downest thing he ever heard of. But Jake Dunlap said it warn’t unusual in the profession. Said when a person was in that line of business he’d got to look out for his own intrust, there warn’t nobody else going to do it for him. And then he went on. He says: “You see, the trouble was, you couldn’t divide up two di’monds amongst three. If there’d been three—But never mind about that, there warn’t three. I loafed along the back streets studying and studying. And I says to myself, I’ll hog them di’monds the first chance I get, and I’ll have a disguise all ready, and I’ll give the boys the slip, and when I’m safe away I’ll put it on, and then let them find me if they can. So I got the false whiskers and the goggles and this countrified suit of clothes, and fetched them along back in a hand-bag; and when I was passing a shop where they sell all sorts of things, I got a glimpse of one of my pals through the window. It was Bud Dixon. I was glad, you bet. I says to myself, I’ll see what he buys. So I kept shady, and watched. Now what do you reckon it was he bought?” “Whiskers?” said I. “No.” “Goggles?” “No.” “Oh, keep still, Huck Finn, can’t you, you’re only just hendering all you can. What _was_ it he bought, Jake?”