Chapter 21
The King and the Duke practice Romeo and Juliet and Richard III. The Duke says that they need something to answer encores with so he tries to teach the King Hamlet's soliloquy. They practice the plays for a while and then arrive at the town in which they plan to perform. It is an old, beat-up country town in Arkansas. They are having a circus come there that night, and it is the perfect night for the show. The Duke has some show bills with the plays and prices on them; they go about putting them up around town.
The town's streets are all mud. Pigs and dogs are everywhere.
Topic Tracking: Picaresque 7
A drunk man named Boggs comes to town on his horse cursing and yelling about how people are going to die. He approaches and startles Huck, but the townspeople tell Huck he is harmless. Boggs says that he is looking for Colonel Sherburn. He finds him and Sherburn warns him to leave before something bad happens. Boggs keeps yelling and someone goes to get his daughter to try and knock some sense into him. Sherburn comes outside again and shoots Boggs twice, just as his daughter runs up to him.
Topic Tracking: Picaresque 8
Sherburn drops his pistol and walks off. Boggs is taken to a drug store where Bibles are placed under his head and on his chest; he dies with everyone watching in the window (including Huck), trying to get a look. Someone says that Sherburn should be lynched and the crowd becomes more and more belligerent.
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