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Tom Sawyer, Detective 157
do up the paper again, just as it was, and slip in, very elaborate and soft, and lay it on the bunk again, and let on we didn't know about any trick, and hadn't any idea he was a-laughing at us behind them bogus snores of his'n; and we would stick by him, and the first night we was ashore we would get him drunk and search him, and get the di'monds; and do for him, too, if it warn't too risky. If we got the swag, we'd got to do for him, or he would hunt us down and do for us, sure. But I didn't have no real hope. I knowed we could get him drunk — he was always ready for that — but what's the good of it? You might search him a year and never find —
"Well, right there I catched my breath and broke off my thought! For an idea went ripping through my head that tore my brains to rags — and land, but I felt gay and good ! You see, I had had my boots off, to unswell my feet, and just then I took up one of them to put it on, and I catched a glimpse of the heel-bottom, and it just took my breath away. You re member about that puzzlesome little screwdriver?"
" You bet I do," says Tom, all excited.
"Well, when I catched that glimpse of that boot heel, the idea that went smashing through my head was, Iknow where he's hid the di'monds! You look at this boot heel, now. See, it's bottomed with a steel plate, and the plate is fastened on with little screws. Now there wasn't a screw about that feller anywhere but in his boot heels; so, if he needed a screwdriver, I reckoned I knowed why." |
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