"
Well, next they got out a couple of long swords that the duke made out of
oak laths, and begun to practice the sword fight--the duke called himself
Richard III.; and the way they laid on and pranced around the raft was
grand to see. But by and by the king tripped and fell overboard, and
after that they took a rest, and had a talk about all kinds of adventures
they'd had in other times along the river.
After dinner the duke says:
"Well, Capet, we'll want to make this a first-class show, you know, so I
guess we'll add a little more to it. We want a little something to
answer encores with, anyway."
"What's onkores, Bilgewater?"
The duke told him, and then says:
"I'll answer by doing the Highland fling or the sailor's hornpipe; and
you--well, let me see--oh, I've got it--you can do Hamlet's soliloquy."
"Hamlet's which?"
"Hamlet's soliloquy, you know; the most celebrated thing in Shakespeare.
Ah, it's sublime, sublime! Always fetches the house. I haven't got it
in the book--I've only got one volume--but I reckon I can piece it out
from memory. I'll just walk up and down a minute, and see if I can call
it back from recollection's vaults."
So he went to marching up and down, thinking, and frowning horrible every
now and then; then he would hoist up his eyebrows; next he would squeeze
his hand on his forehead and stagger back and kind of moan; next he would
sigh, and next he'd let on to drop a tear.
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