Huckleberry Finn page 233-275

         The dauphin, who appears onstage wearing nothing aside from body paint and some “wild” accoutrements, has the audience howling with laughter. But the crowd nearly attacks the duke and the dauphin when they end the show after only a brief performance. The people in the crowd, embarrassed at having been ripped off, decide to protect their honor by making certain that everyone in the town gets ripped off. After the performance, they tell everyone else in town that the play was wonderful. The second night, therefore, also brings a capacity crowd. As the duke has anticipated, the crowd on the third night consists of the two previous nights’ audiences coming to get their revenge. Huck and the duke make a getaway to the raft before the show starts. They have earned $465 in three nights. As the duke and the dauphin tie up the raft to work over another town, Jim complains about having to wait. The dauphin encounters a talkative young man who tells him about a recently deceased local man, Peter Wilks. Arriving in Wilks’s hometown, the duke and the dauphin ask for Wilks and feign anguish when told of his death. The dauphin even makes strange hand gestures to the duke, feigning sign language. A crowd gathers before the Wilks home to watch Wilks’s three nieces tearfully greet the duke and the dauphin, whom they believe to be their English uncles.  The letter Wilks has left behind bequeaths the house and $3,000 to his nieces. His brothers stand to inherit another $3,000, along with more than double that amount in real estate. After finding Wilks’s money in the basement, where the letter had said it would be, the duke and the dauphin privately count the money. They add $415 of their own money when they discover that the stash comes up short of the letter’s promised $6,000. Then, they hand all the money over to the Wilks sisters in a great show before a crowd of townspeople. The dauphin arranges to stay in the Wilks house. Huck has supper with Joanna. Huck feels terrible about letting such sweet women be swindled and resolves to get them their money back.

          I thought that it was nice how Huck was able to return the money back to the Wilks family so that the con men did not get it. I was also surprised with the money that the two men had earned from doing plays in front of crowds. I also wonder why the townspeople would not confront the duke, and dauphin about ripping them off about the play, instead of buying another ticket just to get revenge during the play.