The next evening, after we tied up the raft, I went into a nearby town with the king and the duke.
Nearly everyone was at an outdoor religious meeting, and the king immediately thought of a way to make money from it.
The king and I stood at the back of the crowd and listened for a while as the townspeople sang some hymns.
Then the preacher said that anyone who had sinned should come forward and promise to live a better life.
The king leaped up and ran to the front of the meeting.
He said that he had been a pirate in the Indian Ocean for thirty years.
Now he understood that this was a bad way to live.
"All I want now," he said, "is to go back to the ocean and tell all the other pirates to stop their evil ways and live a good life."
Then he began to cry with shame. Many people in the crowd believed him and began to cry too.
"Let's collect some money for him to help him do his good work!" yelled someone in the crowd.
The townspeople passed a hat around to collect money and gave all of it to the king. He hugged them and thanked them.
When we got back to the raft, we found that he had collected 87 dollars and 75 cents.
The duke had been busy in town too.
He had thought of a clever way that we could travel in the daytime.
He showed us a poster he had printed.
It said "Two-Hundred Dollar Reward" in big letters; underneath, it described a black slave who had escaped from a plantation near New Orleans.
If other boats on the river came too close to our raft, we could tie Jim up so it would look as if he was our prisoner.
Then we could show people the poster and tell them we were taking Jim south to New Orleans to get the reward.
For the next two days, as we continued south on the river, the king and the duke rehearsed their play on the raft.
The duke had two wooden swords in his suitcase, and the two men practiced a fight scene.
On the third day, we arrived at a place in Arkansas called Bricksville.
A circus would be putting on a show in the afternoon, and the town was crowded with people who had come from the countryside to see it.
The duke rented a hall where the play could be staged that evening.
He also got some posters printed, announcing the play, and walked around town handing them out.
The charge would be 25 cents for each adult and 10 cents for each child.
In the afternoon, I snuck under the edge of the tent to watch the circus.
I saw handsome men, and women who looked like queens, with glittering jewels all over their costumes.
They stood up on the backs of horses that galloped around and around the circus ring.
It was the most amazing sight I had ever seen.
That night, the king and duke put on their Shakespearean play, but only 12 people came.
They laughed through the whole play, which wasn't supposed to be funny.
Afterward, the duke said that the people of Arkansas were too stupid to appreciate Shakespeare.
"Tomorrow night," he said. "We'll give them the show they deserve—the Royal Nonesuch."
The duke got new posters printed with the name of the show and the new price: fifty cents.
At the bottom, the poster said, "No women and children admitted."
That evening, the theater was packed with men.
The duke stood in front of the crowd and announced, "You are about to see the most thrilling performance in the history of theater!"
Then the king hurried onto the stage on all fours.
He wore no clothes, and his skin was painted all over with stripes of different colors.
The crowd roared with laughter and clapped. The king hopped off the stage and the duke reappeared.
If they had enjoyed the show, he said, they should tell their friends to come the next night.
People in the audience shouted angrily, "Is the show over already? You charged us fifty cents for this?"
Then a tall man in the audience stood up and said, "Yes, we've been tricked, gentlemen, but we don't want the whole town laughing at us.
Let's leave here and tell all the other men in town to see the show.
Then we'll all be fools, and no one will be laughing at anyone else."
Everyone must have followed his advice because our theater was filled again the next night.
Once again, the king hopped around for a couple of minutes.
But on the third night, the people arriving at the theater were angry men who had already seen the show.
I watched them as they came inside and I saw that they were bringing rotten eggs and cabbages to throw at the stage.
I ran backstage and told the king and duke that they should get out of town at once.
We all ran back to the raft where Jim was waiting.
By the time the audience realized we were gone, we had started down the river.
We didn't light our lantern until we were ten kilometers south.
Then we had our supper on the raft, while the king and duke counted their earnings.
They had 465 dollars. I had never seen so much money.